Isa 29:2-37:22 | KD | STEP | The prophecy here passes from the fall of Samaria, the crown of flowers ( ), to its formal parallel. Jerusalem takes its place by the side of Samaria, the crown of flowers, and under the emblem of a hearth of God. 'Arı̄'ēl might, indeed, mean a lion of God. It occurs in this sense as the name of certain Moabitish heroes ( ; ), and Isaiah himself used the shorter form אראל for the heroes of Judah ( ). But as אריאל (God’s heart, interchanged with הראל htiw degna, God’s height) is the name given in , to the altar of burnt-offering in the new temple, and as Isaiah could not say anything more characteristic of Jerusalem, than that Jehovah had a fire and hearth there ( ); and, moreover, as Jerusalem the city and community within the city would have been compared to a lioness rather than a lion, we take אריאל in the sense of ara Dei (from ארה, to burn). The prophet commences in his own peculiar way with a grand summary introduction, which passes in a few gigantic strides over the whole course from threatening to promise. “Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the castle where David pitched his tent! Add year to year, let the feasts revolve: then I distress Ariel, and there is groaning and moaning; and so she proves herself to me as Ariel.” By the fact that David fixed his headquarters in Jerusalem, and then brought the sacred ark thither, Jerusalem became a hearth of God. Within a single year, after only one more round of feasts (to be interpreted according to , and probably spoken at the passover), Jehovah would make Jerusalem a besieged city, full of sighs ( vahătsı̄qōthı̄ , perf. cons. , with the tone upon the ultimate); but “she becomes to me like an Arı̄el ,” i.e., being qualified through me, she will prove herself a hearth of God, by consuming the foes like a furnace, or by their meeting with their destruction at Jerusalem, like wood piled up on the altar and then consumed in flame. The prophecy has thus passed over the whole ground in a few majestic words. It now starts from the very beginning again, and first of all expands the hoi . , “And I encamp in a circle round about thee, and surround thee with watch-posts, and erect tortoises against thee. And when brought down thou wilt speak from out of the ground, and thy speaking will sound low out of the dust; and thy voice cometh up like that of a demon from the ground, and thy speaking will whisper out of the dust.” It would have to go so far with Ariel first of all, that it would be besieged by a hostile force, and would lie upon the ground in the greatest extremity, and then would whisper with a ghostlike softness, like a dying man, or like a spirit without flesh and bones. Kaddūr signifies sphaera , orbis , as in and in the Talmud (from kâdar = kâthar ; cf., kudur in the name Nabu - kudur - ussur , Nebo protect the crown, κίδαριν), and is used here poetically for סביב. Jerome renders it quasi sphaeram (from dūr , orbis ). מצּב (from נצב, יצב) might signify “firmly planted” (Luzzatto, immobilmente ; compare shūth , ); but according to the parallel it signifies a military post, like מצּב, נציב. Metsurōth (from mâtsōr , ) are instruments of siege, the nature of which can only be determined conjecturally. On 'ōbh , see ; there is no necessity to take it as standing for ba‛al 'ōbh .

‏ Isaiah 29:2-24

The prophecy here passes from the fall of Samaria, the crown of flowers (Isa 28:1-4), to its formal parallel. Jerusalem takes its place by the side of Samaria, the crown of flowers, and under the emblem of a hearth of God. 'Arı̄'ēl might, indeed, mean a lion of God. It occurs in this sense as the name of certain Moabitish heroes (2Sa 23:20; 1Ch 11:22), and Isaiah himself used the shorter form אראל for the heroes of Judah (Isa 33:7). But as אריאל (God’s heart, interchanged with הראל htiw degna, God’s height) is the name given in Eze 43:15-16, to the altar of burnt-offering in the new temple, and as Isaiah could not say anything more characteristic of Jerusalem, than that Jehovah had a fire and hearth there (Isa 31:9); and, moreover, as Jerusalem the city and community within the city would have been compared to a lioness rather than a lion, we take אריאל in the sense of ara Dei (from ארה, to burn). The prophet commences in his own peculiar way with a grand summary introduction, which passes in a few gigantic strides over the whole course from threatening to promise. Isa 29:1 “Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the castle where David pitched his tent! Add year to year, let the feasts revolve: then I distress Ariel, and there is groaning and moaning; and so she proves herself to me as Ariel.” By the fact that David fixed his headquarters in Jerusalem, and then brought the sacred ark thither, Jerusalem became a hearth of God. Within a single year, after only one more round of feasts (to be interpreted according to Isa 32:10, and probably spoken at the passover), Jehovah would make Jerusalem a besieged city, full of sighs (vahătsı̄qōthı̄, perf. cons., with the tone upon the ultimate); but “she becomes to me like an Arı̄el,” i.e., being qualified through me, she will prove herself a hearth of God, by consuming the foes like a furnace, or by their meeting with their destruction at Jerusalem, like wood piled up on the altar and then consumed in flame. The prophecy has thus passed over the whole ground in a few majestic words. It now starts from the very beginning again, and first of all expands the hoi. Isa 29:3, Isa 29:4 “And I encamp in a circle round about thee, and surround thee with watch-posts, and erect tortoises against thee. And when brought down thou wilt speak from out of the ground, and thy speaking will sound low out of the dust; and thy voice cometh up like that of a demon from the ground, and thy speaking will whisper out of the dust.” It would have to go so far with Ariel first of all, that it would be besieged by a hostile force, and would lie upon the ground in the greatest extremity, and then would whisper with a ghostlike softness, like a dying man, or like a spirit without flesh and bones. Kaddūr signifies sphaera, orbis, as in Isa 22:18 and in the Talmud (from kâdar = kâthar; cf., kudur in the name Nabu-kudur-ussur, Nebo protect the crown, κίδαριν), and is used here poetically for סביב. Jerome renders it quasi sphaeram (from dūr, orbis). מצּב (from נצב, יצב) might signify “firmly planted” (Luzzatto, immobilmente; compare shūth, Isa 2:7); but according to the parallel it signifies a military post, like מצּב, נציב. Metsurōth (from mâtsōr, Deu 20:20) are instruments of siege, the nature of which can only be determined conjecturally. On 'ōbh, see Isa 8:19; ^{▼▼The 'akkuubh mentioned there is equivalent to anbûb, Arab. a knot on a reed stalk, then that part of such a reed which comes between two knots, then the reed stalk itself; root נב, to rise up, swell, or become convex without and concave within (Fl.). It is possible that it would be better to trace 'ōbh back to this radical and primary meaning of what is hollow (and therefore has a dull sound), whether used in the sense of a leather-bag, or applied to a spirit of incantation, and the possessor of such a spirit.} there is no necessity to take it as standing for ba‛al 'ōbh. Isa 29:5-8

Thus far does the unfolding of the hoi reach. Now follows an unfolding of the words of promise, which stand at the end of Isa 29:1 : “And it proves itself to me as Ariel.” Isa 29:5-8 : “And the multitude of thy foes will become like finely powdered dust, and the multitude of the tyrants like chaff flying away; and it will take place suddenly, very suddenly. From Jehovah of hosts there comes a visitation with crash of thunder and earthquake and great noise, whirlwind and tempest, and the blazing up of devouring fire. And the multitude of all the nations that gather together against Ariel, and all those who storm and distress Ariel and her stronghold, will be like a vision of the night in a dream. And it is just as a hungry man dreams, and behold he eats; and when he wakes up his soul is empty: and just as a thirsty man dreams, and behold he drinks; and when he wakes up, behold, he is faint, and his soul is parched with thirst: so will it be to the multitude of the nations which gather together against the mountain of Zion.” The hostile army, described four times as hâmōn, a groaning multitude, is utterly annihilated through the terrible co-operation of the forces of nature which are let loose upon them (Isa 30:30, cf., Isa 17:13). “There comes a visitation:” tippâqēd might refer to Jerusalem in the sense of “it will be visited” in mercy, viz., by Jehovah acting thus upon its enemies. But it is better to take it in a neuter sense: “punishment is inflicted.” The simile of the dream is applied in two different ways: (1.) They will dissolve into nothing, as if they had only the same apparent existence as a vision in a dream. (2.) Their plan for taking Jerusalem will be put to shame, and as utterly brought to nought as the eating or drinking of a dreamer, which turns out to be a delusion as soon as he awakes. Just as the prophet emphatically combines two substantives from the same verbal root in Isa 29:1, and two adverbs from the same verb in Isa 29:5; so does he place צבא and צבה together in Isa 29:7, the former with על relating to the crowding of an army for the purpose of a siege, the latter with an objective suffix (compare Psa 53:6) to the attack made by a crowded army. The metsōdâh of Ariel (i.e., the watch-tower, specula, from tsūd, to spy) ^{▼▼In Arabic, also, masâd signifies a lofty hill or mountain-top, from a secondary form of tsud; and massara, to lay the foundations of a fortified city (‛ı̄r mâtsōr, Psa 31:22), from tsūr.)} is the mountain of Zion mentioned afterwards in Isa 29:8. כּאשׁר, as if; comp. Zec 10:6; Job 10:19. אוכל והנּה without הוּא; the personal pronoun is frequently omitted, not only in the leading participial clause, as in this instance (compare Isa 26:3; Isa 40:19; Psa 22:29; Job 25:2; and Köhler on Zec 9:12), but also with a minor participial clause, as in Psa 7:10; Psa 55:20, and Hab 2:10. The hungering and thirsting of the waking man are attributed to his nephesh (soul: cf., Isa 32:6; Isa 5:14; Pro 6:30), just because the soul is the cause of the physical life, and without it the action of the senses would be followed by no sensation or experience whatever. The hungry stomach is simply the object of feeling, and everything sensitive in the bodily organism is merely the medium of sensation or feeling; that which really feels is the soul. The soul no sooner passes out of the dreaming state into a waking condition, than it feels that its desires are as unsatisfied as ever. Just like such a dream will the army of the enemy, and that victory of which it is so certain before the battle is fought, fade away into nothing. Isa 29:9-12

This enigma of the future the prophet holds out before the eyes of his contemporaries. The prophet received it by revelation of Jehovah; and without the illumination of Jehovah it could not possibly be understood. The deep degradation of Ariel, the wonderful deliverance, the sudden elevation from the abyss to this lofty height - all this was a matter of faith. But this faith was just what the nation wanted, and therefore the understanding depending upon it was wanting also. The shemu‛âh was there, but the bı̄nâh was absent; and all שׁמועה הבין was wrecked on the obtuseness of the mass. The prophet, therefore, who had received the unhappy calling to harden his people, could not help exclaiming (Isa 29:9), “Stop, and stare; blind yourselves, and grow blind!” התמהמהּ, to show one’s self delaying (from מההּ, according to Luzzatto the reflective of תּמהמהּ, an emphatic form which is never met with), is connected with the synonymous verb תּמהּ, to be stiff with astonishment; but to שׁעע, to be plastered up, i.e., incapable of seeing (cf., Isa 6:10), there is attached the hithpalpel of the same verb, signifying “to place one’s self in such circumstances,” se oblinere (differently, however, in Psa 119:16, Psa 119:47, compare Isa 11:8, se permulcere). They could not understand the word of God, but they were confused, and their eyes were, so to speak, festered up: therefore this self-induced condition would become to them a God-appointed punishment. The imperatives are judicial words of command.

This growth of the self-hardening into a judicial sentence of obduracy, is proclaimed still more fully by the prophet. “They are drunken, and not with wine; they reel, and not with meth. For Jehovah hath poured upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and bound up your eyes; the prophets and your heads, the seers, He has veiled. And the revelation of all this will be to you like words of a sealed writing, which they give to him who understands writing, saying, Pray, read this; but he says, I cannot, it is sealed. And they give the writing to one who does not understand writing, saying, Pray, read this; but he says, I do not understand writing.” They were drunken and stupid; not, however, merely because they gave themselves up to sensual intoxication (יין, dependent upon שׁכרוּ, ebrii vino), but because Jehovah had given them up to spiritual confusion and self-destruction. All the punishments of God are inflicted through the medium of His no less world-destroying than world-sustaining Spirit, which, although not willing what is evil, does make the evil called into existence by the creature the means of punishing evil. Tardēmâh is used here to signify the powerless, passive state of utter spiritual insensibility. This judgment had fallen upon the nation in all its members, even upon the eyes and heads of the nation, i.e., the prophets. Even they whose duty is was to see to the good of the nation, and lead it, were blind leaders of the blind; their eyes were fast shut (עצּם, the intensive form of the kal, Isa 33:15; Aram. עצּם; Talmud also עמּץ: to shut the eyes, or press them close), and over their heads a cover was drawn, as over sleepers in the night. Since the time of Koppe and Eichhorn it has become a usual thing to regard את־הנּביאים and החזים as a gloss, and indeed as a false one (compare Isa 9:13-14); but the reason assigned - namely, that Isaiah’s polemics are directed not against the prophets, but against the stupid staring people - is utterly groundless (compare Isa 28:7, and the polemics of his contemporary Micah, e.g., Isa 3:5-8). Moreover, the author of a gloss would have been more likely to interpret ראשׁיכם by השּׂרים or הכּהנים (compare Job 9:24). And Isa 29:11, Isa 29:12 are also opposed to this assumption of a gloss. For by those who understood what was written (sēpher), it is evident that the prophets and rulers of the nation are intended; and by those who did not understand it, the great mass of the people. To both of them, “the vision of all,” i.e., of all and everything that God had shown to His true prophets, was by the judgment of God completely sealed. Some of them might have an outward knowledge; but the inward understanding of the revelation was sealed to them. Some had not even this, but stared at the word of the prophet, just as a man who cannot read stares at what is written. The chethib has הסּפר; the keri ספר, though without any ground, since the article is merely generic. Instead of נא־זה קרא, we should write זה קרא־נא in both cases, as certain codices and old editions do. Isa 29:13-14

This stupefaction was the self-inflicted punishment of the dead works with which the people mocked God and deceived themselves. “The Lord hath spoken: Because this people approaches me with its mouth, and honours me with its lips, and keeps its heart far from me, and its reverence of me has become a commandment learned from men: therefore, behold, I will proceed wondrously with this people, wondrously and marvellously strange; and the wisdom of its wise men is lost, and the understanding of its intelligent men becomes invisible.” Ever since the time of Asaph (Ps 50, cf., Psa 78:36-37), the lamentation and condemnation of hypocritical ceremonial worship, without living faith or any striving after holiness, had been a leading theme of prophecy. Even in Isaiah’s introductory address (chapter 1) this complain was uttered quite in the tone of that of Asaph. In the time of Hezekiah it was peculiarly called for, just as it was afterwards in that of Josiah (as the book of Jeremiah shows). The people had been obliged to consent to the abolition of the public worship of idols, but their worship of Jehovah was hypocrisy. Sometimes it was conscious hypocrisy, arising from the fear of man and favour of man; sometimes unconscious, inasmuch as without any inward conversion, but simply with work-righteousness, the people contented themselves with, and even prided themselves upon, an outward fulfilment of the law (Mic 6:6-8; Mic 3:11). Instead of נגּשׁ (lxx, Vulg., Syr., Mat 15:8; Mar 7:6), we also meet with the reading נגּשׂ, “because this people harasses itself as with tributary service;” but the antithesis to richaq (lxx πόῤῥω ἀπέχει ) favours the former reading niggash, accedit; and bephı̄v (with its moth) must be connected with this, though in opposition to the accents. This self-alienation and self-blinding, Jehovah would punish with a wondrously paradoxical judgment, namely, the judgment of a hardening, which would so completely empty and confuse, that even the appearance of wisdom and unity, which the leaders of Israel still had, would completely disappear. יוסיף (as in Isa 38:5) is not the third person fut. hiphil here (so that it could be rendered, according to Isa 28:16, “Behold, I am he who;” or more strictly still, “Behold me, who;” which, however, would give a prominence to the subject that would be out of place here), but the part. kal for יוסף. That the language really allowed of such a lengthening of the primary form qatĭl into qatı̄l, and especially in the case of יוסיף, is evident from Ecc 1:18 (see at Psa 16:5). In ופלא הפלא, פלא (cf., Lam 1:9) alternates with the gerundive (see at Isa 22:17): the fifth example in this one address of the emphatic juxtaposition of words having a similar sound and the same derivation (vid., Isa 29:1, Isa 29:5, Isa 29:7, Isa 29:9). Isa 29:15-16

Their hypocrisy, which was about to be so wonderfully punished according to the universal law (Psa 18:26-27), manifested itself in their self-willed and secret behaviour, which would not inquire for Jehovah, nor suffer itself to be chastened by His word. “Woe unto them that hide plans deep from Jehovah, and their doing occurs in a dark place, and they say, Who saw us then, and who knew about us? Oh for your perversity! It is to be regarded as potters’ clay; that a work could say to its maker, He has not made me; and an image to its sculptor, He does not understand it!” Just as Ahaz had carefully kept his appeal to Asshur for help secret from the prophet; so did they try, as far as possible, to hide from the prophet the plan for an alliance with Egypt. לסתּיר is a syncopated hiphil for להסתּיר, as in Isa 1:12; Isa 3:8; Isa 23:11. העמיק adds the adverbial notion, according to our mode of expression (comp. Joe 2:20, and the opposite thought in Joe 2:26; Ges. §142). To hide from Jehovah is equivalent to hiding from the prophet of Jehovah, that they might not have to listen to reproof from the word of Jehovah. We may see from Isa 8:12 how suspiciously they watched the prophet in such circumstances as these. But Jehovah saw them in their secrecy, and the prophet saw through the whole in the light of Jehovah. הפכּכם is an exclamation, like תּפלצתּך in Jer 49:16. They are perverse, or ('im) “is it not so?” They think they can dispense with Jehovah, and yet they are His creatures; they attribute cleverness to themselves, and practically disown Jehovah, as if the pot should say to the potter who has turned it, He does not understand it. Isa 29:17-21

But the prophet’s God, whose omniscience, creative glory, and perfect wisdom they so basely mistook and ignored, would very shortly turn the present state of the world upside down, and make Himself a congregation out of the poor and wretched, whilst He would entirely destroy this proud ungodly nation. “Is it not yet a very little, and Lebanon is turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field esteemed as a forest? And in that day the deaf hear scripture words, and the eyes of the blind will see out of obscurity and out of darkness. And the joy of the humble increases in Jehovah, and the poor among men will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. For tyrants are gone, and it is over with scoffers; and all who think evil are rooted out, who condemn a man for a word, and lay snares for him that is free-spoken in the gate, and overthrow the righteous through shameful lies.” The circumstances themselves, as well as the sentence passed, will experience a change, in complete contrast with the present state of things. This is what is affirmed in Isa 29:17; probably a proverb transposed into a more literary style. What is now forest becomes ennobled into garden ground; and what is garden ground becomes in general estimation a forest (לכרמל, ליער, although we should rather expect ל, just as in Isa 32:15). These emblems are explained in Isa 29:18. The people that are now blind and deaf, so far as the word of Jehovah is concerned, are changed into a people with open ears and seeing eyes. Scripture words, like those which the prophet now holds before the people so unsuccessfully, are heard by those who have been deaf. The unfettered sight of those who have been blind pierces through the hitherto surrounding darkness. The heirs of the new future thus transformed are the anâvı̄m (“meek”) and the 'ebhyōnı̄m (“poor”). אדם (the antithesis of אנשׁהים, e.g., Isa 29:13) heightens the representation of lowliness; the combination is a superlative one, as in הצאן צעירי, Jer 49:20, and הצאן עניי in Zec 11:7 (cf., חיות פריץ in Isa 35:9): needy men who present a glaring contrast to, and stand out from, the general body of men. Such men will obtain ever increasing joy in Jehovah (yâsaph as in Isa 37:31). Such a people of God would take the place of the oppressors (cf., Isa 28:12) and scoffers (cf., Isa 28:14, Isa 28:22), and those who thought evil (shâqad, invigilare, sedulo agere), i.e., the wretched planners, who made a חטא of every one who did not enter into their plans (i.e., who called him a chōtē'; cf., Deu 24:4; Ecc 5:5), and went to law with the man who openly opposed them in the gate (Amo 5:10; yeqōshūn, possibly the perf. kal, cf., Jer 50:24; according to the syntax, however, it is the fut. kal of qūsh = yâqōsh: see at Isa 26:16; Ges. §44, Anm. 4), and thrust away the righteous, i.e., forced him away from his just rights (Isa 10:2), by tōhū, i.e., accusations and pretences of the utmost worthlessness; for these would all have been swept away. This is the true explanation of the last clause, as given in the Targum, and not “into the desert and desolation,” as Knobel and Luzzatto suppose; for with Isaiah tōhū is the synonym for all such words as signify nothingness, groundlessness, and fraud. The prophet no doubt had in his mind, at the time that he uttered these words, the conduct of the people towards himself and his fellow-prophets, and such as were like-minded with them. The charge brought against him of being a conspirator, or a traitor to his country, was a tōhū of this kind. All these conspirators and persecutors Jehovah would clear entirely away. Isa 29:22-24

Everything that was incorrigible would be given up to destruction; and therefore the people of God, when it came out of the judgment, would have nothing of the same kind to look for again. “Therefore thus saith Jehovah of the house of Jacob, He who redeemed Abraham: Jacob shall not henceforth be ashamed, nor shall his face turn pale any more. For when he, when his children see the work of my hands in the midst of him, they will sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shudder before the God of Israel. And those who were of an erring spirit discern understanding, and murmurers accept instruction.” With אל (for which Luzzatto, following Lowth, reads אל sda, “the God of the house of Jacob”) the theme is introduced to which the following utterance refers. The end of Israel will correspond to the holy root of its origin. Just as Abraham was separated from the human race that was sunk in heathenism, to become the ancestor of a nation of Jehovah, so would a remnant be separated from the great mass of Israel that was sunk in apostasy from Jehovah; and this remnant would be the foundation of a holy community well pleasing to God. And this would never be confounded or become pale with shame again (on bōsh, see at Isa 1:29; châvar is a poetical Aramaism); for both sins and sinners that called forth the punishments of God, which had put them to shame, would have been swept away (cf., Zep 3:11). In the presence of this decisive work of punishment (ma‛ăseh as in Isa 28:21; Isa 10:12; Isa 5:12, Isa 5:19), which Jehovah would perform in the heart of Israel, Israel itself would undergo a thorough change. ילדיו is in apposition to the subject in בּראתו, “when he, namely his children” (comp. Job 29:3); and the expression “his children” is intentionally chosen instead of “his sons” (bânı̄m), to indicate that there would be a new generation, which would become, in the face of the judicial self-manifestation of Jehovah, a holy church, sanctifying Him, the Holy One of Israel. Yaqdı̄shū is continued in vehiqdı̄shū: the prophet intentionally repeats this most significant word, and he‛ĕrı̄ts is the parallel word to it, as in Isa 8:12-13. The new church would indeed not be a sinless one, or thoroughly perfect; but, according to Isa 29:24, the previous self-hardening in error would have been exchanged for a willing and living appropriation of right understanding, and the former murmuring resistance to the admonitions of Jehovah would have given place to a joyful and receptive thirst for instruction. There is the same interchange of Jacob and Israel here which we so frequently met with in chapters 40ff. And, in fact, throughout this undisputedly genuine prophecy of Isaiah, we can detect the language of chapters 40-66. Through the whole of the first part, indeed, we may trace the gradual development of the thoughts and forms which predominate there.

‏ Isaiah 30

Isa 30:1-5

The plan which, according to Isa 29:15, was already projected and prepared in the deepest secrecy, is now much further advanced. The negotiations by means of ambassadors have already been commenced; but the prophet condemns what he can no longer prevent. “Woe to the stubborn children, saith Jehovah, to drive plans, and not by my impulse, and to plait alliance, and not according to my Spirit, to heap sin upon sin: that go away to travel down to Egypt, without having asked my mouth, to fly to Pharaoh’s shelter, and to conceal themselves under the shadow of Egypt. And Pharaoh’s shelter becomes a shame to them, and the concealment under the shadow of Egypt a disgrace. For Judah’s princes have appeared in Zoan, and his ambassadors arrive in Hanes. They will all have to be ashamed of a people useless to them, that brings no help and no use, but shame, and also reproach.” Sōrerı̄m is followed by infinitives with Lamed (cf., Isa 5:22; Isa 3:8): who are bent upon it in their obstinacy. Massēkhâh designates the alliance as a plait (massēkheth). According to Cappellus and others, it designates it as formed with a libation (σπονδη, from σπένδεσθαι); but the former is certainly the more correct view, inasmuch as massēkhâh (from nâsakh, fundere) signifies a cast, and hence it is more natural here to take nâsakh as equivalent to sâkhakh, plectere (Jerome: ordiremini telam). The context leaves no doubt as to the meaning of the adverbial expressions ולא־מנּי and ולא־רוּחי, viz., without its having proceeded from me, and without my Spirit being there. “Sin upon sin:” inasmuch as they carry out further and further to perfect realization the thought which was already a sinful one in itself. The prophet now follows for himself the ambassadors, who are already on the road to the country of the Nile valley. He sees them arrive in Zoan, and watches them as they proceed thence into Hanes. He foresees and foretells what a disgraceful opening of their eyes will attend the reward of this untheocratical beginning. On lâ‛ōz b', see at Isa 10:31 : ‛ōz is the infinitive constr. of ‛ūz; mâ‛ōz, on the contrary, is a derivative of ‛âzaz, to be strong. The suffixes of שׂריו (his princes) and מלאכיו (his ambassadors) are supposed by Hitzig, Ewald, and Knobel, who take a different view of what is said, to refer to the princes and ambassadors of Pharaoh. But this is by no means warranted on the ground that the prophet cannot so immediately transfer to Zoan and Hanes the ambassadors of Judah, who were still on their journey according to Isa 30:2. The prophet’s vision overleaps the existing stage of the desire for this alliance; he sees the great men of his nation already suing for the favour of Egypt, first of all in Zoan, and then still further in Hanes, and at once foretells the shameful termination of this self-desecration of the people of Jehovah. The lxx give for יגיעוּ חנּס, μάτην κοπιάσουσιν, i.e., ייגעוּ סהנּם, and Knobel approves this reading; but it is a misunderstanding, which only happens to have fallen out a little better this time than the rendering ὡς Δαυίδ given for כּדּוּר in Isa 29:3. If chinnâm had been the original reading, it would hardly have entered any one’s mind to change it into chânēs. The latter was the name of a city on an island of the Nile in Central Egypt, the later Heracleopolis (Eg. Hnēs; Ehnēs), the Anysis of Herodotus (ii. 137). On Zoan, see at Isa 19:11. At that time the Tanitic dynasty was reigning, the dynasty preceding the Ethiopian. Tanis and Anysis were the two capitals. הבאישׁ (= היבשׁ =( ה, a metaplastic hiphil of יבשׁ = בּושׁ, a different word from יבשׁ) is incorrectly pointed for הבאישׁ, like ריאשׁנה (keri) for ראישׁנה in Jos 21:10. הבאישׁ signifies elsewhere, “to make stinking” (to calumniate, Pro 13:5), or “to come into ill odour” (1Sa 27:12); here, however, it means to be put to shame (בּאשׁ = בּושׁ). Isa 30:6-7

The prophet’s address is hardly commenced, however, when a heading is introduced of the very same kind as we have already met with several times in the cycle of prophecies against the heathen nations. Gesenius, Hitzig, Umbreit, and Knobel, rid themselves of it by pronouncing it a gloss founded upon a misunderstanding. But nothing is more genuine in the whole book of Isaiah than the words massâ' bahămōth negebh . The heading is emblematical, like the four headings in chapters 21, 22. And the massâ' embraces Isa 30:6, Isa 30:7. Then follows the command to write it on a table by itself. The heading is an integral part of the smaller whole. Isaiah breaks off his address to communicate an oracle relating to the Egyptian treaty, which Jehovah has specially commanded him to hand down to posterity. The same interruption would take place if we expunged the heading; for in any case it was Isa 30:6, Isa 30:7 that he was to write upon a table. This is not an address to the people, but the preliminary text, the application of which is determined afterwards. The prophet communicates in the form of a citation what has been revealed to him by God, and then states what God has commanded him to do with it. We therefore enclose Isa 30:6, Isa 30:7 in inverted commas as a quotation, and render the short passage, which is written in the tone of chapter 21, as follows: “Oracle concerning the water-oxen of the south: Through a land of distress and confinement, whence the lioness and lion, adders and flying dragons; they carry their possessions on the shoulders of asses’ foals, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a nation that profits nothing. And Egypt, worthlessly and hollowly will they help; therefore I call this Egypt, Great-mouth that sits still.” The “water-ox of the south” is the Nile-horse; and this is the emblem of Egypt, the land of the south (in Daniel and Zechariah Babylonia is “the land of the north”). Bahămōth is the construct of behēmōth (Job 40), which is a Hebraized from of an Egyptian word, p-ehe-mau (though the word itself has not yet been met with), i.e., the ox of the water, or possibly p-ehe-mau-t (with the feminine article at the close, though in hesmut, another name for a female animal, mut = t . mau signifies “the mother:” see at Job 40:15). The animal referred to is the hippopotamus, which is called bomarino in Italian, Arab. the Nile-horse or water-pig. The emblem of Egypt in other passages of the Old Testament is tannin, the water-snake, or leviathan, the crocodile. In Psa 78:31 this is called chayyath qâneh, “the beast of the reed,” though Hengstenberg supposes that the Nile-horse is intended there. This cannot be maintained, however; but in the passage before us this emblem is chosen, just because the fat, swine-like, fleshy colossus, whose belly nearly touches the ground as it walks, is a fitting image of Egypt, a land so boastful and so eager to make itself thick and broad, and yet so slow to exert itself in the interest of others, and so unwilling to move from the spot. This is also implied in the name rahabh-hēm-shâb. Rahab is a name applied to Egypt in other passages also (Isa 51:9; Psa 87:4; Psa 89:11), and that in the senses attested by the lxx at Job 26:12 (cf., Isa 9:13), viz., κῆτος, a sea-monster, monstrum marinum. Here the name has the meaning common in other passages, viz., violence, domineering pride, boasting (ἀλαζονεία, as one translator renders it). הם is a term of comparison, as in Gen 14:2-3, etc.; the plural refers to the people called rahabh. Hence the meaning is either, “The bragging people, they are sit-still;” or, “Boast-house, they are idlers.” To this deceitful land the ambassadors of Judah were going with rich resources (chăyâlı̄m, opes) on the shoulder of asses’ foals, and on the hump (dabbesheth, from dâbhash, according to Luzzatto related to gâbhash, to be hilly) of camels, without shrinking from the difficulties and dangers of the road through the desert, where lions and snakes spring out now here and now there (מהם, neuter, as in Zep 2:7, comp. Isa 38:16; see also Deu 8:15; Num 21:6). Through this very desert, through which God had led their fathers when He redeemed them out of the bondage of Egypt, they were now marching to purchase the friendship of Egypt, though really, whatever might be the pretext which they offered, it was only to deceive themselves; for the vainglorious land would never keep the promises that it made. Isa 30:8

So runs the divine oracle to which the following command refers. “Now go, write it on a table with them, and note it in a book, and let it stand there fore future days, for ever, to eternity.” The suffixes of kothbâh (write it) and chuqqâh (note it) refer in a neuter sense to Isa 30:6, Isa 30:7; and the expression “go” is simply a general summons to proceed to the matter (cf., Isa 22:15). Sēpher could be used interchangeably with lūăch, because a single leaf, the contents of which were concluded, was called sēpher (Exo 17:14). Isaiah was to write the oracle upon a table, a separate leaf of durable material; and that “with them,” i.e., so that his countrymen might have it before their eyes (compare Isa 8:1; Hab 2:2). It was to be a memorial for posterity. The reading לעד (Sept., Targ., Syr.) for לעד is appropriate, though quite unnecessary. The three indications of time form a climax: for futurity, for the most remote future, for the future without end. Isa 30:9-11

It was necessary that the worthlessness of the help of Egypt should be placed in this way before the eyes of the people. “For it is a refractory people, lying children, children who do not like to hear the instruction of Jehovah, who say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things! Speak flatteries to us! Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, remove from our face the Holy One of Israel.” On the expression ‛am merı̄ (a people of stubbornness), see at Isa 3:8. The vowel-pointing of כחשׁהים follows the same rule as that of החכם. The prophet traces back their words to an unvarnished expression of their true meaning, just as he does in Isa 28:15. They forbid the prophets of Jehovah to prophesy, more especially nekhōchōth, straight or true things (things not agreeable to their own wishes), but would rather hear chălâqōth, i.e., smooth, insinuating, and flattering things, and even mahăthallōth (from hâthal, Talm. tal, ludere), i.e., illusions or deceits. Their desire was to be entertained and lauded, not repelled and instructed. The prophets are to adopt another course (מנּי only occurs here, and that twice, instead of the more usual מנּי = מן, after the form אלי, עלי), and not trouble them any more with the Holy One of Israel, whom they (at least Isaiah, who is most fond of calling Jehovah by this name) have always in their mouths. Isa 30:12-14

Thus do they fall out with Jehovah and the bearers of His word. “Therefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye dislike this word, and put your trust in force and shufflings, and rely upon this; therefore will this iniquity be to you like a falling breach, bent forwards in a high-towering wall, which falls to ruin suddenly, very suddenly. And He smites it to pieces, as a potter’s vessel falls to pieces, when they smash it without sparing, and of which, when it lies smashed to pieces there, you cannot find a sherd to fetch fire with from the hearth, or to take water with out of a cistern.” The “word” towards which they cherished me'ōs (read mo'oskhem), was the word of Jehovah through His prophet, which was directed against their untheocratic policy of reckoning upon Egypt. Nâlōz, bent out or twisted, is the term used to denote this very policy, which was ever resorting to bypaths and secret ways; whilst ‛ōsheq denotes the squeezing out of the money required to carry on the war of freedom, and to purchase the help of Egypt (compare 2Ki 15:20). The guilt of Judah is compared to the broken and overhanging part of a high wall (nibh‛eh, bent forwards; compare (בּעבּע, a term applied to a diseased swelling). Just as such a broken piece brings down the whole of the injured wall along with it, so would the sinful conduct of Judah immediately ruin the whole of its existing constitution. Israel, which would not recognise itself as the image of Jehovah, even when there was yet time (Isa 29:16), would be like a vessel smashed into the smallest fragments. It is the captivity which is here figuratively threatened by the prophet; for the smashing had regard to Israel as a state. The subject to וּשׁברהּ in Isa 30:14 is Jehovah, who would make use of the hostile power of man to destroy the wall, and break up the kingdom of Judah into such a diaspora of broken sherds. The reading is not ושׁהברהּ (lxx, Targum), but וּשׁברהּ, et franget eam. Kâthōth is an infinitive statement of the mode; the participle kâthūth, which is adopted by the Targum, Kimchi, Norzi, and others, is less suitable. It was necessary to proceed with יחמל לא (without his sparing), simply because the infinitive absolute cannot be connected with לא (Ewald, §350,a). לחשּׂוף (to be written thus with dagesh both here and Hag 2:16) passes from the primary meaning nudare to that of scooping up, as ערה does to that of pouring out. Isa 30:15-17

Into such small sherds, a heap thus scattered hither and thither, would the kingdom of Judah be broken up, in consequence of its ungodly thirst for self-liberation. “For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, Through turning and rest ye would be helped; your strength would show itself in quietness and confidence; but ye would not. And ye said, No, but we will fly upon horses; therefore ye shall flee: and, We will ride upon racehorses; therefore your pursuers will race. A thousand, ye will flee from the threatening of one, from the threatening of five, until ye are reduced to a remnant, like a pine upon the top of the mountain, and like a banner upon the hill.” The conditions upon which their salvation depended, and by complying with which they would attain to it, were shūbhâh, turning from their self-chosen way, and nachath, rest from self-confident work of their own (from nūăch, like rachath, ventilabrum, from rūăch, and shachath, fovea, from shūăch). Their strength (i.e., what they would be able to do in opposition to the imperial power) would show itself (hâyâh, arise, come to the light, as in Isa 29:2), in hashqēt, laying aside their busy care and stormy eagerness, and bitchâh, trust, which cleaves to Jehovah and, renouncing all self-help, leaves Him to act alone. This was the leading and fundamental principle of the prophet’s politics even in the time of Ahaz (Isa 7:4). But from the very first they would not act upon it; nor would they now that the alliance with Egypt had become an irreversible fact. To fly upon horses, and ride away upon racehorses (kal, like κέλης, celer) ^{▼▼We regard the Sanscrit kal, to drive or hunt, the Greek κέλλ(ὀκέλλ)ειν, and the Semitic qal, as all having the same root: cf., Vurtius, Grundzüge der griech. Etymol. i. 116.)} had been and still was their proud and carnal ambition, which Jehovah would answer by fulfilling upon them the curses of the thorah (Lev 26:8, Lev 26:36; Deu 28:25; Deu 32:30). One, or at the most five, of the enemy would be able with their snorting to put to flight a whole thousand of the men of Judah. The verb nūs (Isa 30:16), which rhymes with sūs, is used first of all in its primary sense of “flying” (related to nūts, cf., Exo 14:27), and then in its more usual sense of “fleeing.” (Luzzatto, after Abulwalîd: vogliamo far sui cavalli gloriosa comparsa, from nūs, or rather nâsas, hence nânōs, from which comes nēs, excellere.) יקּלּוּ, the fut. niphal, signifies to be light, i.e., swift; whereas יקל, the fut. kal, had become a common expression for light in the sense of despised or lightly esteemed. The horses and chariots are Judah’s own (Isa 2:7; Mic 5:9), though possibly with the additional allusion to the Egyptian cavalry, of world-wide renown, which they had called to their help. In Isa 30:17 the subject of the first clause is also that of the second, and consequently we have not וּמפּני (compare the asyndeta in Isa 17:6). The insertion of rebhâbhâh (ten thousand) after chămisshâh (five), which Lowth, Gesenius, and others propose, is quite unnecessary. The play upon the words symbolizes the divine law of retribution (talio), which would be carried out with regard to them. The nation, which had hitherto resembled a thick forest, would become like a lofty pine (tōrne, according to the talmudic tūrnı̄thâ, Pinus pinea), standing solitary upon the top of a mountain, and like a flagstaff planted upon a hill - a miserable remnant in the broad land so fearfully devastated by war. For אם עד followed by a preterite (equivalent to the fut. exactum), compare Isa 6:11 and Gen 24:19. Isa 30:18

The prophet now proceeds with ולכן, to which we cannot give any other meaning than et propterea, which it has everywhere else. The thought of the prophet is the perpetually recurring one, that Israel would have to be reduced to a small remnant before Jehovah would cease from His wrath. “And therefore will Jehovah wait till He inclines towards you, and therefore will He withdraw Himself on high till He has mercy upon you; for Jehovah is a God of right, salvation to those who wait for Him.” In other places lâkhēn (therefore) deduces the punishment from the sin; here it infers, from the nature of the punishment, the long continuance of the divine wrath. Chikkâh, to wait, connected as it is here with Lamed, has at least the idea, if not the actual signification, of delay (as in 2Ki 9:3; compare Job 32:4). This helps to determine the sense of yârūm, which does not mean, He will show Himself exalted as a judge, that through judgment He may render it possible to have mercy upon you (which is too far-fetched a meaning); but, He will raise Himself up, so as to be far away (cf., Num 16:45, “Get you up from among this congregation;” and Psa 10:5, mârōm = “far above,” as far as heaven, out of his sight), that thus (after having for a long time withdrawn His gracious presence; cf., Hos 5:6) He may bestow His mercy upon you. A dark prospect, but only alarming to unbelievers. The salvation at the remotest end of the future belongs to believers even now. This is affirmed in the word 'ashrē (blessed), which recalls Psa 2:12. The prophet uses châkhâh in a very significant double sense here, just as he did nuus a short time before. Jehovah is waiting for the time when He can show His favour once more, and blessed are they who meet His waiting with their own waiting. Isa 30:19-22

None but such are heirs of the grace that follows the judgment - a people, newly pardoned in response to its cry for help, conducted by faithful teachers in the right way, and renouncing idolatry with disgust. “For a people continues dwelling in Zion, in Jerusalem; thou shalt not weep for ever: He will prove Himself gracious to thee at the sound of thy cry for help; as soon as He hears, He answers thee. And the Lord giveth you bread in penury, and water for your need; and thy teachers will not hide themselves any more, and thine eyes come to see thy teachers. And thine ears will hear words behind thee, saying, 'This is the way, walk ye in it!' whether ye turn to the right hand or to the left. And ye defile the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the clothing of thy molten images of gold; thou wilt scatter them like filthy thing: 'Get out!' thou sayest to it.” We do not render Isa 30:19, “For O people that dwelleth in Zion, in Jerusalem!” For although the personal pronoun may be omitted after Vav in an apostrophizing connection (Pro 8:5; Joe 2:23), we should certainly expect to find אתּה here. The accent very properly marks these words as forming an independent clause. The apparent tautology in the expression, “in Zion, in Jerusalem,” is emphatic and explanatory. The fate of Zion-Jerusalem will not be the same as that of the imperial city (Isa 13:20; Isa 25:2); for it is the city of Jehovah, which, according to His promise, cannot become an eternally deserted ruin. After this promising declaration, the prophet turns and addresses the people of the future in the people of his own time; bâkhō strengthens the verbal notion with the mark of duration; chânōn with the mark of certainty and fulness. יחנך, with an advanced ŏ, as in Gen 43:29, for יחן. כּ is the shortest expression used to denote simultaneous occurrence; answering and hearing would coincide (shom‛âh, nomen actionis, as in Isa 47:9; Isa 55:2; Ges. §45, 1 b; ‛ânâkh, the pausal form here, as in Jer 23:37). From this lowest stage of response to the penitential cry for help, the promise rises higher and higher. The next stage is that in which Jerusalem is brought into all the distress consequent upon a siege, as threatened by the prophet in Isa 29:3-4; the besieged would not be allowed by God to die of starvation, but He would send them the necessary support. The same expression, but very little altered, viz., “to give to eat lechem lachatz ūmayim lachatz,” signifies to put any one upon the low rations of a siege or of imprisonment, in 1Ki 22:27 and 2Ch 18:26; but here it is a promise, with the threat kept in the background. צר and לחץ are connected with the absolute nouns לחם and מים, not as adverbial, but as appositional definitions (like תּרעלה יין, “wine which is giddiness,” in Psa 60:5; and בּרכּים מים, “water which is knees,” i.e., which has the measure of the knees, where birkayim is also in apposition, and not the accusative of measurement): literally, bread which is necessity, and water which is affliction; that is to say, nourishment of which there is extreme need, the very opposite of bread and water in abundance. Umbreit and Drechsler understand this spiritually. But the promise rises as it goes on. There is already an advance, in the fact that the faithful and well-meaning teachers (mōrı̄m) no longer keep themselves hidden because of the hard-heartedness and hatred of the people, as they have done ever since the time of Ahaz (נכנף, a denom.: to withdraw into כּנף, πτέρυξ, the utmost end, the most secret corner; though kânaph in itself signifies to cover or conceal). Israel, when penitent, would once more be able to rejoice in the sight of those whom it longed to have back again. מוריך is a plural, according to the context (on the singular of the previous predicate, see Ges. §147). As the shepherds of the flock, they would follow the people with friendly words of admonition, whilst the people would have their ears open to receive their instruction. תּאמינוּ is here equivalent to תּימינוּ, תּימינוּ. The abominations of idolatry (which continued even in the first years of Hezekiah’s reign: Isa 31:7; Mic 1:5; Mic 5:11-13; Mic 6:16) would now be regarded as abominations, and put away. Even gold and silver, with which the images that were either carved or cast in inferior metal were overlaid, would be made unclean (see 2 Kings 28:8ff.); that is to say, no use would be made of them. Dâvâh is a shorter expression for kelı̄ dâvâh, the cloth worn by a woman at the monthly period. On zârâh, to dispense - to which dâvâh would be inappropriate if understood of the woman herself, as it is by Luzzatto - compare 2Ki 23:6. With זהבך, the plural used in the general address passes over into the individualizing singular; לו is to be taken as a neuter pointing back to the plunder of idols. Isa 30:23-25

The promise, after setting forth this act of penitence, rises higher and higher; it would not stop at bread in time of need. “And He gives rain to thy seed, with which thou sowest the land; and bread of the produce of the land, and it is full of sap and fat: in that day your flocks will feed in roomy pastures. And the oxen and the young asses, which work the land, salted mash will they eat, which is winnowed with the winnowing shovel and winnowing fork! And upon every high mountain, and every hill that rises high, there are springs, brooks in the day of the great massacre, when the towers fall.” The blessing which the prophet depicts is the reverse of the day of judgment, and stands in the foreground when the judgment is past. The expression “in that day” fixes, as it were, the evening of the day of judgment, which is followed by the depicted morning of blessing. But the great mass of the Jewish nation would be first of all murdered in war; the towers must fall, i.e., (though without any figure, and merely as an exemplifying expression) all the bulwarks of self-confidence, self-help, and pride (Isa 2:15; Mic 5:9-10). In the place of the self-induced calamities of war, there would now come the God-given rich blessings of peace; and in the place of the proud towers, there would come fruitful heights abounding with water. The field would be cultivated again, and produce luxuriant crops of nutritious corn; so that not only the labour of man, but that of the animals also, would receive a rich reward. “Rain to thy seed:” this is the early rain commencing about the middle of October. אשׁר as an accusative, זרע being construed with a double accusative, as in Deu 22:9. מקניך might be the singular, so far as the form is concerned (see Isa 1:30; Isa 5:12; Isa 22:11); but, according to Exo 17:3, it must be taken as a plural, like מוריך. The 'ălâphı̄m are the oxen used in ploughing and threshing; the ‛ăyârı̄m, the asses used for carrying manure, soil, the sheaves, or the grain. Belı̄l châmı̄ts is a mash (composed of oats, barley, and vetches, or things of that kind) made more savoury with salt and sour vegetables; ^{▼▼Such as Salsola kali, Salsola tragus, Salsola soda, and other plants of the family of the chenopodiaceae.} that is to say, a farrago (from bâlal, to mix; Comm. on Job, at Job 40:19-24). According to Wetzstein, it is ripe barley (unthreshed during the harvest and threshing time, and the grain itself for the rest of the year) mixed with salt or salt vegetables. In any case, belı̄l is to be understood as referring to the grain; this is evident from the relative clause, “which has been winnowed” (= mezōreh, Ewald, §169,d), or perhaps more correctly, “which he (one) winnows” (part. kal), the participle standing for the third person, with the subject contained within itself (Ewald, §200), i.e., not what was generally given from economy, viz., barley, etc., mixed with chopped straw (tibn), but pure grain (habb mahd, as they say at the present day). Rachath is a winnowing shovel, which is still used, according to Wetzstein, in Merj. Gedur, and Hauran; mizreh, on the other hand, is the winnowing fork with six prongs. Dainty food, such as was only given occasionally to the cattle, as something especially strengthening, would then be their regular food, and would be prepared in the most careful manner. “Who cannot see,” exclaims Vitringa, “that this is to be taken spiritually?” He appeals to what Paul says in 1Co 9:9, viz., that God does not trouble Himself about oxen. But Paul did not mean this in the same sense as Aristotle, who maintained that the minima were entirely excluded from the providence of God. What the Scriptures say concerning cattle, they do not say for the sake of the cattle, but for the sake of men; though it does not follow that the cattle are to be understood figuratively, as representing men. And this is the case here. What the prophet paints in this idyllic style, in colours furnished by the existing customs, ^{▼▼Asses particularly, even those of a guest, are generally very much neglected. The host throws them a little grass, and then hangs up the fodder-sack full of chopped straw; and it is a sign of extraordinary hospitality of corn is given to the asses as well as to the horses. - Wetzstein.} is not indeed intended to be understood in the letter; and yet it is to be taken literally. In the age of glory, even on this side of eternity, a gigantic stride will be taken forward towards the glorification of universal nature, and towards the end of all those sighs which are so discernible now, more especially among domestic animals. The prophecy is therefore to be interpreted according to Rom 8:19.; from which we may clearly see that God does trouble Himself about the sighing of an ox or ass that is overburdened with severe toil, and sometimes left to starve. Isa 30:26

The promise now rises higher and higher, and passes from earth to heaven. “And the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be multiplied sevenfold, like the light of seven days, in the day that Jehovah bindeth the hurt of His people, and healeth the crushing of His stroke.” Modern commentators from Lowth downwards for the most part pronounce היּמים שׁבעת כּאור a gloss; and there is one external evidence in favour of this, which is wanting in the case of the other supposed glosses in Isaiah, namely, that the words are omitted by the lxx (though not by the Targum, the Syriac, or Jerome). Even Luther (although he notices these words in his exposition and sermons) merely renders them, der Sonnen schein wird siebenmal heller sein denn jtzt (the sunlight will be seven times as bright as it is now). But the internal evidence does not favour their spuriousness even in the case before us; for the fact that the regularity of the verse, as consisting of four members, is thereby disturbed, is no evidence at all, since the v. could be warranted in a pentastic quite as well as in a tetrastic form. We therefore decide in this instance also in favour of the conclusion that the prophet composed the gloss himself. But we cannot maintain, with Umbreit, that the addition was necessary, in order to guard against the idea that there would be seven suns shining in the sky; for the prophet does not predict a multiplication of the sun by seven, but simply the multiplication of its light. The seven days are the length of an ordinary week. Drechsler gives it correctly: “The radiated light, which is sufficient to produce the daylight for a whole week according to the existing order of things, will then be concentrated into a single day.” Luther renders it in this way, als wenn sieben tag ynn eynander geschlossen weren (as if seven days were enclosed in one another). This also is not meant figuratively, any more than Paul means is figuratively, when he says, that with the manifestation of the “glory” of the children of God, the “corruption” of universal nature will come to an end. Nevertheless, it is not of the new heaven that the prophet is speaking, but of the glorification of nature, which is promised by both the Old Testament prophecy and by that of the New at the closing period of the world’s history, and which will be the closing typical self-annunciation of that eternal glory in which everything will be swallowed up. The brightest, sunniest days then alternate, as the prophet foretells, with the most brilliant moonlight nights. No other miracles will be needed for this than that wonder-working power of God, which even now produces those changes of weather, the laws of which no researches of natural science have enabled us to calculate, and which will then give the greatest brilliancy and most unchangeable duration to what is now comparatively rare - namely, a perfectly unclouded sky, with sun or moon shining in all its brilliancy, yet without any scorching from the one, or injurious effects from the other. Heaven and earth will then put on their sabbath dress; for it will be the Sabbath of the world’s history, the seventh day in the world’s week. The light of the seven days of the world’s week will be all concentrated in the seventh. For the beginning of creation was light, and its close will be light as well. The darkness all comes between, simply that it may be overcome. At last will come a bōqer (morning), after which it will no more be said, “And evening was, and morning was.” The prophet is speaking of the last type of this morning. What he predicts here precedes what he predicted in Isa 24:23, just as the date of its composition precedes that of chapters 24-27; for there the imperial city was Babylon, whereas here the glory of the latter day is still placed immediately after the fall of Assyria. Isa 30:27-28 “Behold, the name of Jehovah cometh from far, burning His wrath, and quantity of smoke: His lips are full of wrathful foam, and His tongue like devouring fire. And His breath is like an overflowing brook, which reaches half-way to the neck, to sift nations in the sieve of nothingness; and a misleading bridle comes to the cheeks of the nations.” Two figures are here melted together - namely, that of a storm coming up from the farthest horizon, which turns the sky into a sea of fire, and kindles whatever it strikes, so that there rises up a heavy burden, or thick mass of smoke (kōbhed massâ'âh, like mas'ēth in Jdg 20:40, cf., Jdg 20:38; on this attributive combination, burning His wrath (Ewald, §288,c) and a quantity, etc., see Isa 13:9); and that of a man burning with wrath, whose lips foam, whose tongue moves to and fro like a flame, and whose breath is a snorting that threatens destruction, which when it issues from Jehovah swells into a stream, which so far covers a man that only his neck appears as the visible half. We had the same figure in Isa 8:8, where Asshur, as it came upon Judah, was compared to such an almost overwhelming and drowning flood. Here, again, it refers to Judah, which the wrath of Jehovah had almost though not entirely destroyed. For the ultimate object of the advancing name of Jehovah (shēm, name, relating to His judicial coming) is to sift nations, etc.: lahănâphâh for lehânı̄ph (like lahăzâdâh in Dan 5:20), to make it more like nâphâh in sound. The sieve of nothingness is a sieve in which everything, that does not remain in it as good corn, is given up to annihilation; שׁוא is want of being, i.e., of life from God, and denotes the fate that properly belongs to such worthlessness. In the case of v'resen (and a bridle, etc.) we must either supply in thought לשׂום (שׂם), or, what is better, take it as a substantive clause: “a misleading bridle” (or a bridle of misleading, as Böttcher renders it, math‛eh being the form mashqeh) holds the cheeks of the nations. The nations are regarded as wild horses, which could not be tamed, but which were now so firmly bound and controlled by the wrath of God, that they were driven down into the abyss. Isa 30:29

This is the issue of the judgment which begins at the house of God, then turns against the instrument employed, namely the heathen, and becomes to the Israel that survives a counterpart of the deliverance from Egypt. “Your song will then sound as in the night, when the feast is celebrated; and ye will have joy of heart like those who march with the playing of flutes, to go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the Rock of Israel.” In the word châg (feast), which is generally used with special reference to the feast of tabernacles, there is here an unmistakeable allusion to the passover, as we may see from the introduction of “the night,” which evidently means the night before the passover (lēl shimmurı̄m, Exo 12:42), which was so far a festal night, that it preceded and introduced the feast of unleavened bread. The prophet has taken his figure from the first passover-night in Egypt, when Israel was rejoicing in the deliverance which it was just about to receive, whilst the destroying angel was passing through the land. Such would be the song which they would be able to sing, when Jehovah poured out His judgment upon His people’s enemies outside. The church is shut up in its chamber (Isa 26:20), and its joy resembles the heartfelt joy of those who go on pilgrimage on one of the three great feasts, or in the procession that carries up the first-fruits to Jerusalem (Biccurim, iii. 3), going up with the sound of flutes to the mountain of Jehovah, to appear before Him, the Rock of Israel. Isa 30:30-33

Israel is marching in such a joyful way to a sacred and glorious height, whilst outside Jehovah is sweeping the world-power entirely away, and that without any help from Israel. “And Jehovah causes His majestic voice to be heard, and causes the lowering of His arm to be seen, with the snorting of wrath and the blazing of devouring fire, the bursting of a cloud, and pouring of rain and hailstones. For Asshur will be terrified at the voice of Jehovah, when He smites with the staff. And it will come to pass, every stroke of the rod of destiny, which Jehovah causes to fall upon Asshur, is dealt amidst the noise of drums and the playing of guitars; and in battles of swinging arm He fights it. For a place for the sacrifice of abominations has long been made ready, even for the king is it prepared; deep, broad has He made it: its funeral-pile has fire and wood in abundance; the breath of Jehovah like a stream of brimstone sets it on fire.” The imposing crash (on hōd, see Job 39:20) of the cry which Jehovah causes to be heard is thunder (see Psa 29:1-11); for the catastrophe occurs with a discharge of all the destructive forces of a storm (see Isa 29:6). Nephets is the “breaking up” or “bursting,” viz., of a cloud. It is through such wrath-announcing phenomena of nature that Jehovah manifests the otherwise invisible letting down of His arm to smite (nachath may possibly not be the derivative of nūăch, “settling down,” but of nâchath, “the coming down,” as in Psa 38:3; just as shebheth in 2Sa 23:7 is not derived from shūbh, but from shâbhath, to go to ruin). Isa 30:31, commencing with ki (for), explains the terrible nature of what occurs, from the object at which it is directed: Asshur is alarmed at the voice of Jehovah, and thoroughly goes to pieces. We must not render this, as the Targum does, “which smites with the rod,” i.e., which bears itself so haughtily, so tyrannically (after Isa 10:24). The smiter here is Jehovah (lxx, Vulg., Luther); and basshēbhet yakkeh is either an attributive clause, or, better still, a circumstantial determining clause, eo virga percutiente. According to the accents, vehâyâh in Isa 30:32 is introductory: “And it will come to pass, every stroke of the punishing rod falls (supply יהיה) with an accompaniment of drums and guitars” (the Beth is used to denote instrumental accompaniment, as in Isa 30:29; Isa 24:9; Psa 49:5, etc.) - namely, on the part of the people of Jerusalem, who have only to look on and rejoice in the approaching deliverance. Mūsâdâh with mattēh is a verbal substantive used as a genitive, “an appointment according to decree” (comp. yâsad in Hab 1:12, and yâ‛ad in Mic 6:9). The fact that drums and guitars are heard along with every stroke, is explained in Isa 30:32: “Jehovah fights against Asshur with battles of swinging,” i.e., not with darts or any other kind of weapon, but by swinging His arm incessantly, to smite Asshur without its being able to defend itself (cf., Isa 19:16). Instead of בּהּ, which points back to Asshur, not to matteh, the keri has בּם, which is not so harsh, since it is immediately preceded by עליו. This cutting down of the Assyrians is accounted for in Isa 30:33, (ki, for), from the fact that it had long ago been decreed that they should be burned as dead bodies. 'Ethmūl in contrast with mâchâr is the past: it has not happened today, but yesterday, i.e., as the predestination of God is referred to, “long ago.”Tophteh is the primary form of tōpheth (from tūph, not in the sense of the Neo-Persian tâften, Zend. tap, to kindle or burn, from which comes tafedra, melting; but in the Semitic sense of vomiting or abhorring: see at Job 17:6), the name of the abominable place where the sacrifices were offered to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom: a Tophet-like place. The word is variously treated as both a masculine and feminine, possibly because the place of abominable sacrifices is described first as bâmâh in Jer 7:31. In the clause הוּכן למּלך גּם־הוא, the gam, which stands at the head, may be connected with lammelekh, “also for the king is it prepared” (see at Job 2:10); but in all probability lammelekh is a play upon lammolekh (e.g., Lev 18:2), “even this has been prepared for the Melekh,” viz., the king of Asshur. Because he was to be burned there, together with his army, Jehovah had made this Tophet-like place very deep, so that it might have a far-reaching background, and very broad, so that in this respect also there might be room for many sacrifices. And their medūrâh, i.e., their pile of wood (as in Eze 24:9, cf., Eze 24:5, from dūr, Talm. dayyēr, to lay round, to arrange, pile), has abundance of fire and wood (a hendiadys, like “cloud and smoke” in Isa 4:5). Abundance of fire: for the breath of Jehovah, pouring upon the funeral pile like a stream of brimstone, sets it on fire. בּ בּער, not to burn up, but to set on fire. בּהּ points back to tophteh, like the suffix of medurâthâh. ^{▼▼So far as the form of the text is concerned, kōl has the disjunctive yethib before pashta, which occurs eleven times according to the Masora. Nevertheless the word is logically connected in the closest manner with what follows (comp. 'ēth tōrath in Isa 5:24). The âh of mūsâdâh is rafatum pro mappicato, according to the Masora; in which case the suffix would refer to Asshur. In the place of הוא גם we also meet with היּא גם, with this chethib and keri reversed; but the former, according to which הוכן is equivalent to הוכנה, has many examples to support it in the Masora. הוכן has kametz in correct MSS in half pause; whereas Kimchi (Michlol, 117b) regards it as a participle.}

‏ Isaiah 31

Isa 31:1-3

There is nothing to surprise us in the fact, that the prophet returns again and again to the alliance with Egypt. After his warning had failed to prevent it, he wrestled with it in spirit, set before himself afresh the curse which would be its certain fruit, brought out and unfolded the consolation of believers that lay hidden in the curse, and did not rest till the cursed fruit, that had become a real thing, had been swallowed up by the promise, which was equally real. The situation of this fourth woe is just the same as that of the previous one. The alliance with Egypt is still in progress. “Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, and rely upon horses, and put their trust in chariots, that there are many of them; and in horsemen, that there is a powerful multitude of them; and do not look up to the Holy One of Israel, and do not inquire for Jehovah! And yet He also is wise; thus then He brings evil, and sets not His words aside; and rises up against the house of miscreants, and against the help of evil-doers. And Egypt is man, and not God; and its horses flesh, and not spirit. And when Jehovah stretches out His hand, the helper stumbles, and he that is helped falls, and they all perish together.” The expression “them that go down” (hayyōredı̄m) does not imply that the going down was taking place just then for the first time. It is the participle of qualification, just as God is called הבּרא. לעזרה with Lamed of the object, as in Isa 20:6. The horses, chariots, and horsemen here, as those of Egypt, which Diodorus calls ἱππάσιμος, on account of its soil being so suitable for cavalry (see Lepsius in Herzog’s Cyclopaedia). The participle is combined in the finite verb. Instead of ועל־סוּסים, we also find the reading preferred by Norzi, of על without Vav, as in Isa 5:11 (cf., Isa 5:23). The perfects, שׁעוּ לא and דרשׁוּ לא, are used without any definite time, to denote that which was always wanting in them. The circumstantial clause, “whilst He is assuredly also wise,” i.e., will bear comparison with their wisdom and that of Egypt, is a touching μείωσις. It was not necessary to think very highly of Jehovah, in order to perceive the reprehensible and destructive character of their apostasy from Him. The fut. consec. ויּבא is used to indicate the inevitable consequence of their despising Him who is also wise. He will not set aside His threatening words, but carry them out. The house of miscreants is Judah (Isa 1:4); and the help (abstr. pro concr., just as Jehovah is frequently called “my help,” ‛ezrâthı̄, by the Psalmist) of evil-doers is Egypt, whose help has been sought by Judah. The latter is “man” ('âdâm), and its horses “flesh” (bâsâr); whereas Jehovah is God (El) and spirit (rūăch; see Psychol. p. 85). Hofmann expounds it correctly: “As ruuach has life in itself, it is opposed to the bâsâr, which is only rendered living through the rūăch; and so El is opposed to the corporeal 'âdâm, who needs the spirit in order to live at all.” Thus have they preferred the help of the impotent and conditioned, to the help of the almighty and all-conditioning One. Jehovah, who is God and spirit, only requires to stretch out His hand (an anthropomorphism, by the side of which we find the rule for interpreting it); and the helpers, and those who are helped (i.e., according to the terms of the treaty, though not in reality), that is to say, both the source of the help and the object of help, are all cast into one heap together. Isa 31:4

And things of this kind would occur. “For thus hath Jehovah spoken to me, As the lion growls, and the young lion over its prey, against which a whole crowd of shepherds is called together; he is not alarmed at their cry, and does not surrender at their noise; so will Jehovah of hosts descend to the campaign against the mountain of Zion, and against their hill.” There is no other passage in the book of Isaiah which sounds so Homeric as this (vid., Il. xviii. 161, 162, xii. 299ff.). It has been misunderstood by Knobel, Umbreit, Drechsler, and others, who suppose על לצבּא to refer to Jehovah’s purpose to fight for Jerusalem: Jehovah, who would no more allow His city to be taken from Him, than a lion would give up a lamb that it had taken as its prey. But how could Jerusalem be compared to a lamb which a lion holds in its claws as tereph? (Isa 5:29). We may see, even from Isa 29:7, what construction is meant to be put upon על צבא. Those sinners and their protectors would first of all perish; for like a fierce indomitable lion would Jehovah advance against Jerusalem, and take it as His prey, without suffering Himself to be thwarted by the Judaeans and Egyptians, who set themselves in opposition to His army (The Assyrians). The mountain of Zion was the citadel and temple; the hill of Zion the city of Jerusalem (Isa 10:32). They would both be given up to the judgment of Jehovah, without any possibility of escape. The commentators have been misled by the fact, that a simile of a promising character follows immediately afterwards, without anything to connect the one with the other. But this abrupt μετάβασις was intended as a surprise, and was a true picture of the actual fulfilment of the prophecy; for in the moment of the greatest distress, when the actual existence of Jerusalem was in question (cf., Isa 10:33-34), the fate of Ariel took suddenly and miraculously a totally different turn (Isa 29:2). In this sense, a pleasant picture is placed side by side with the terrible one (compare Mic 5:6-7). Isa 31:5

Jehovah suddenly arrests the work of punishment, and the love which the wrath enfolds within itself begins to appear. “Like fluttering birds, so will Jehovah of Hosts screen Jerusalem; screening and delivering, sparing and setting free.” The prophet uses the plural, “like fluttering birds,” with an object - namely, not so much to represent Jehovah Himself, as the tender care and, as it were, maternal love, into which His leonine fierceness would be changed. This is indicated by the fact, that he attaches the feminine ‛âphōth to the common gender tsippŏrı̄m. The word pâsōăch recals to mind the deliverance from Egypt (as in Isa 30:29) in a very significant manner. The sparing of the Israelites by the destroyer passing over their doors, from which the passover derived its name, would be repeated once more. We may see from this, that in and along with Assyria, Jehovah Himself, whose instrument of punishment Assyria was, would take the filed against Jerusalem (Isa 29:2-3); but His attitude towards Jerusalem is suddenly changed into one resembling the action of birds, as they soar round and above their threatened nests. On the inf. abs. kal (gânōn) after the hiphil, see Ewald, §312, b; and on the continuance of the inf. abs. in the finite verb, §350, a. This generally takes place through the future, but here through the preterite, as in Jer 23:14; Gen 26:13, and 1Sa 2:26 (if indeed vegâdēl is the third pers. preterite there). Isa 31:6

On the ground of this half terrible, half comforting picture of the future, the call to repentance is now addressed to the people of the prophet’s own time. “Then turn, O sons of Israel, to Him from whom men have so deeply departed.” Strictly speaking, “to Him with regard to whom (אשׁר) ye are deeply fallen away” (he‛ĕmı̄q, as in Hos 9:9, and sârâh, that which is alienated, alienation, as in Isa 1:5); the transition to the third person is like the reverse in Isa 1:29. This call to repentance the prophet strengthens by two powerful motives drawn from the future. Isa 31:7

The first is, that idolatry would one day be recognised in all its abomination, and put away. “For in that day they will abhor every one their silver idols and their gold idols, which your hands have made you for a sin,” i.e., to commit sin and repent, with the preponderance of the latter idea, as in Hos 8:11 (compare 1Ki 13:34). חטא, a second accusative to עשׂוּ, indicating the result. The prospect is the same as that held out in Isa 30:22; Isa 27:9; Isa 17:8; Isa 2:20. Isa 31:8-9

The second motive is, that Israel will not be rescued by men, but by Jehovah alone; so that even He from whom they have now so deeply fallen will prove Himself the only true ground of confidence. “And Asshur falls by a sword not of a man, and a sword not of a man will devour him; and he flees before a sword, and his young men become tributary. And his rock, for fear will it pass away, and his princes be frightened away by the flags: the saying of Jehovah, who has His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem.” The lxx and Jerome render this falsely φεύξεται οὐκ (לא) ἀπὸ προσώπου μαχαίρας. לו is an ethical dative, and the prophet intentionally writes “before a sword” without any article, to suggest the idea of the unbounded, infinite, awful (cf., Isa 28:2, beyâd; Psalter, vol. i. p. 15). A sword is drawn without any human intervention, and before this Asshur falls, or at least so many of the Assyrians as are unable to save themselves by flight. The power of Asshur is for ever broken; even its young men will henceforth become tributary, or perform feudal service. By “his rock” most commentators understand the rock upon which the fugitive would gladly have taken refuge, but did not dare (Rosenmüller, Gesenius, Knobel, etc.); others, again, the military force of Asshur, as its supposed invincible refuge (Saad., etc.); others, the apparently indestructible might of Asshur generally (Vulgate, Rashi, Hitzig). But the presence of “his princes” in the parallel clause makes it most natural to refer “his rock” to the king; and this reference is established with certainty by what Isa 32:2 affirms of the king and princes of Judah. Luther also renders it thus: und jr Fels wird fur furcht wegzihen (and their rock will withdraw for fear). Sennacherib really did hurry back to Assyria after the catastrophe in a most rapid flight. Minnēs are the standards of Asshur, which the commanders of the army fly away from in terror, without attempting to rally those that were scattered. Thus speaks Jehovah, and this is what He decrees who has His 'ūr and tannūr in Jerusalem. We cannot suppose that the allusion here is to the fire and hearth of the sacrifices; for tannūr does not mean a hearth, but a furnace (from nūr, to burn). The reference is to the light of the divine presence, which was outwardly a devouring fire for the enemies of Jerusalem, an unapproachable red-hot furnace (ignis et caminus qui devorat peccatores et ligna, faenum stipulamque consumit: Jerome).

‏ Isaiah 32

Isa 32:1-2

For Judah, sifted, delivered, and purified, there now begins a new ear. Righteous government, as a blessing for the people, is the first beneficent fruit. “Behold, the king will reign according to righteousness; and the princes, according to right will they command. And every one will be like a shelter from the wind, and a covert from the storm; like water-brooks in a dry place, like the shadow of a gigantic rock in a languishing land.” The kingdom of Asshur is for ever destroyed; but the kingdom of Judah rises out of the state of confusion into which it has fallen through its God - forgetting policy and disregard of justice. King and princes now rule according to the standards that have been divinely appointed and revealed. The Lamed in ūlesârı̄m (and the princes) is that of reference (quod attinet ad, as in Psa 16:3 and Ecc 9:4), the exponent of the usual casus abs. (Ges. §146, 2); and the two other Lameds are equivalent to κατά, secundum (as in Jer 30:11). The figures in Isa 32:2 are the same as in Isa 25:4. The rock of Asshur (i.e., Sennacherib) has departed, and the princes of Asshur have deserted their standards, merely to save themselves. The king and princes of Judah are now the defence of their nation, and overshadow it like colossal walls of rock. This is the first fruit of the blessing. Isa 32:3-4

The second is an opened understanding, following upon the ban of hardening. “And the eyes of the seeing no more are closed, and the ears of the hearing attend. And the heart of the hurried understands to know, and the tongue of stammerers speaks clear things with readiness.” It is not physical miracles that are predicted here, but a spiritual change. The present judgment of hardening will be repealed: this is what Isa 32:3 affirms. The spiritual defects, from which many suffer who do not belong to the worst, will be healed: this is the statement in Isa 32:4. The form תּשׁעינה is not the future of שׁעה here, as in Isa 31:1; Isa 22:4; Isa 17:7-8 (in the sense of, they will no longer stare about restlessly and without aim), but of שׁעה = שׁעע, a metaplastic future of the latter, in the sense of, to be smeared over to closed (see Isa 29:9; Isa 6:10; cf., tach in Isa 44:18). On qâshabh (the kal of which is only met with here), see at Isa 21:7. The times succeeding the hardening, of which Isaiah is speaking here, are “the last times,” as Isa 6:1-13 clearly shows; though it does not therefore follow that the king mentioned in Isa 32:1 (as in Isa 11:1.) is the Messiah Himself. In Isa 32:1 the prophet merely affirms, that Israel as a national commonwealth will then be governed in a manner well pleasing to God; here he predicts that Israel as a national congregation will be delivered from the judgment of not seeing with seeing eyes, and not hearing with hearing ears, and that it will be delivered from defects of weakness also. The nimhârı̄m are those that fall headlong, the precipitate, hurrying, or rash; and the עלּגים, stammerers, are not scoffers (Isa 28:7., Isa 19:20), as Knobel and Drechsler maintain, but such as are unable to think and speak with distinctness and certainty, more especially concerning the exalted things of God. The former would now have the gifts of discernment (yâbhı̄n), to perceive things in their true nature, and to distinguish under all circumstances that which is truly profitable (lâda‛ath); the latter would be able to express themselves suitably, with refinement, clearness, and worthiness. Tsachōth (old ed. tsâchōth) signifies that which is light, transparent; not merely intelligible, but refined and elegant. תּמהר gives the adverbial idea to ledabbēr (Ewald, §§285,a). Isa 32:5-8

A third fruit of the blessing is the naming and treating of every one according to his true character. “The fool will no more be called a nobleman, nor the crafty a gentleman. For a fool speaks follies, and his heart does godless things, to practise tricks and to speak error against Jehovah, to leave the soul of hungry men empty, and to withhold the drink of thirsty ones. And the craft of a crafty man is evil, who devises stratagems to destroy suffering ones by lying words, even when the needy exhibits his right. But a noble man devises noble things, and to noble things he adheres.” Nobility of birth and wealth will give place to nobility of character, so that the former will not exist or not be recognised without the latter. Nâdı̄bh is properly one who is noble in character, and then, dropping the ethical meaning, one who is noble by rank. The meaning of the word generosus follows the same course in the opposite direction. Shōă‛ is the man who is raised to eminence by the possession of property; the gentleman, as in Job 34:19. The prophet explains for himself in what sense he uses the words nâbhâl and kı̄lai. We see from his explanation that kı̄lai neither signifies the covetous, from kūl (Saad.), nor the spendthrift, from killâh (Hitzig). Jerome gives the correct rendering, viz., fraudulentus; and Rashi and Kimchi very properly regard it as a contraction of nekhı̄lai. It is an adjective form derived from כּיל = נכיל, like שׂיא = נשׂיא (Job 20:6). The form כּלי in Isa 32:1 is used interchangeably with this, merely for the sake of the resemblance in sound to כּליו (machinatoris machinae pravae). In Isa 32:6, commencing with ki (for), the fact that the nâbhâl (fool) and kı̄lai (crafty man) will lose their titles of honour, is explained on the simple ground that such men are utterly unworthy of them. Nâbhâl is a scoffer at religion, who thinks himself an enlightened man, and yet at the same time has the basest heart, and is a worthless egotist. The infinitives with Lamed show in what the immorality ('âven) consists, with which his heart is so actively employed. In Isa 32:6, ūbhedabbēr (“and if he speak”) is equivalent to, “even in the event of a needy man saying what is right and well founded:” Vâv = et in the sense of etiam ((cf., 2Sa 1:23; Psa 31:12; Hos 8:6; Ecc 5:6); according to Knobel, it is equivalent to et quidem, as in Ecc 8:2; Amo 3:11; Amo 4:10; whereas Ewald regards it as Vav conj. (§283,d), “and by going to law with the needy,” but את־אביון would be the construction in this case (vid., 2Ki 25:6). According to Isa 32:8, not only does the noble man devise what is noble, but as such (הוּא) he adheres to it. We might also adopt this explanation, “It is not upon gold or upon chance that he rises;” but according to the Arabic equivalents, qūm signifies persistere here. Isa 32:9-14

This short address, although rounded off well, is something more than a fragment complete in itself, like the short parabolic piece in Isa 28:23-29, which commences in a similar manner. It is the last part of the fourth woe, just as that was the last part of the first. It is a side piece to the threatening prophecy of the time of Uzziah-Jotham (Isa 3:16.), and chastises the frivolous self-security of the women of Jerusalem, just as the former chastises their vain and luxurious love of finery. The prophet has now uttered many a woe upon Jerusalem, which is bringing itself to the verge of destruction; but notwithstanding the fact that women are by nature more delicate, and more easily affected and alarmed, than men, he has made no impression upon the women of Jerusalem, to whom he now foretells a terrible undeceiving of their carnal ease, whilst he holds out before them the ease secured by God, which can only be realized on the ruins of the former.

The first part of the address proclaims the annihilation of their false ease. “Ye contented women, rise up, hear my voice; ye confident daughters, hearken to my speech! Days to the year: then will ye tremble, confident ones! for it is all over with the vintage, the fruit harvest comes to nought. Tremble, contented ones! Quake, ye confident ones! Strip, make yourselves bare, and gird your loins with sackcloth! They smite upon their breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. On the land of my people there come up weeds, briers; yea, upon all joyous houses of the rejoicing city. For the palace is made solitary; the crowd of the city is left desolate; the ofel and watch-tower serve as caves for ever, for the delight of wild asses, for the tending of flocks.” The summons is the same as in Gen 4:23 and Jer 9:19 (comp. Isa 28:23); the attributes the same as in Amo 6:1 (cf., Isa 4:1, where Isaiah apostrophizes the women of Samaria). שׁאנן, lively, of good cheer; and בּטח, trusting, namely to nothing. They are to rise up (qōmnâh), because the word of God must be heard standing (Jdg 3:20). The definition of the time “days for a year” (yâmı̄m ‛al-shânâh) appears to indicate the length of time that the desolation would last, as the word tirgaznâh is without any Vav apod. (cf., Isa 65:24; Job 1:16-18); but Isa 29:1 shows us differently, and the Vav is omitted, just as it is, for example, in Dan 4:28. Shânâh is the current year. In an undefined number of days, at the most a year from the present time (which is sometimes the meaning of yâmı̄m), the trembling would begin, and there would be neither grapes nor fruit to gather. Hence the spring harvest of corn is supposed to be over when the devastation begins. ימים is an acc. temporis; it stands here (as in Isa 27:6, for example; vid., Ewald, §293, 1) to indicate the starting point, not the period of duration. The milel-forms פּשׁטה, ערה, חגרה ,ערה , are explained by Ewald, Drechsler, and Luzzatto, as plur. fem. imper. with the Nun of the termination nâh dropped - an elision that is certainly never heard of. Others regard it as inf. with He femin. (Credner, Joel, p. 151); but קטלה for the infinitive קטלה is unexampled; and equally unexampled would be the inf. with He indicating the summons, as suggested by Böttcher, “to the shaking!” “to the stripping!” They are sing. masc. imper., such as occur elsewhere apart from the pause, e.g., מלוכה (for which the keri has מלכה) in Jdg 9:8; and the singular in the place of the plural is the strongest form of command. The masculine instead of the feminine appears already in הרדוּ, which is used in the place of חרדנה. The prophet then proceeds in the singular number, comprehending the women as a mass, and using the most massive expression. The He introduced into the summons required that the feminine forms, רגזי, etc., should be given up. ערה, from ערר, to be naked, to strip one’s self. חגרה absolute, as in Joe 1:13 (cf., Isa 3:24), signifies to gird one’s self with sackcloth (saq). We meet with the same remarkable enall. generis in Isa 32:12. Men have no breasts (shâdaim), and yet the masculine sōphedı̄m is employed, inasmuch as the prophet had the whole nation in his mind, throughout which there would be such a plangere ubera on account of the utter destruction of the hopeful harvest of corn and wine. Shâdaim (breasts) and שׂדי (construct to sâdōth) have the same common ring as ubera and ubertas frugum. In Isa 32:13 ta‛ăleh points back to qōts shâmı̄r, which is condensed into one neuter idea. The ki in Isa 32:13 has the sense of the Latin imo (Ewald, §330,b). The genitive connection of עלּיזה קריה with משׂושׂ בּתּי (joy-houses of the jubilant city) is the same as in Isa 28:1. The whole is grammatically strange, just as in the Psalms the language becomes all the more complicated, disjointed, and difficult, the greater the wrath and indignation of the poet. Hence the short shrill sentences in Isa 32:14 : palace given up (cf., Isa 13:22); city bustle forsaken (i.e., the city generally so full of bustle, Isa 22:2). The use of בּעד is the same as in Pro 6:26; Job 2:4. ‛Ofel, i.e., the south-eastern fortified slope of the temple mountain, and the bachan (i.e., the watch-tower, possibly the flock-tower which is mentioned in Mic 4:8 along with ‛ofel), would be pro speluncis, i.e., would be considered and serve as such. And in the very place where the women of Jerusalem had once led their life of gaiety, wild asses would now have their delight, and flocks their pasture (on the wild asses, perâ'ı̄m, that fine animal of the woodless steppe, see at Job 24:5; Job 39:5-8). Thus would Jerusalem, with its strongest, proudest places, be laid in ruins, and that in a single year, or ever less than a year. Isa 32:15-19

The state would then continue long, very long, until at last the destruction of the false rest would be followed by the realization of the true. “Until the Spirit is poured out over us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as the forest. And justice makes its abode in the desert, and righteousness settles down upon the fruit-field. And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the reward of righteousness rest and security for ever. And my people dwells in a place of peace, and in trustworthy, safe dwellings, and in cheerful resting-places. And it hails with the overthrow of the forest, and into lowliness must the city be brought low.” There is a limit, therefore, to the “for ever” of Isa 32:14. The punishment would last till the Spirit, which Israel had not then dwelling in the midst of it (see Hag 2:5), and whose fulness was like a closed vessel to Israel, should be emptied out over Israel from the height of heaven (compare the piel ערה, Gen 24:20), i.e., should be poured out in all its fulness. When that was done, a great change would take place, the spiritual nature of which is figuratively represented in the same proverbial manner as in Isa 29:17. At the same time, a different turn is given to the second half in the passage before us. The meaning is, not that what was now valued as a fruit-bearing garden would be brought down from its false eminence, and be only regarded as forest; but that the whole would be so glorious, that what was now valued as a fruit-garden, would be thrown into the shade by something far more glorious still, in comparison with which it would have the appearance of a forest, in which everything grew wild. The whole land, the uncultivated pasture-land as well as the planted fruitful fields of corn and fruit, would then become the tent and seat of justice and righteousness. “Justice and righteousness’ (mishpât and tsedâqâh) are throughout Isaiah the stamp of the last and perfect time. As these advance towards self-completion, the produce and result of these will be peace (ma‛ăseh and abhōdâh are used to denote the fruit or self-reward of work and painstaking toil; compare פּעלּה). But two things must take place before this calm, trustworthy, happy peace, of which the existing carnal security is only a caricature, can possibly be realized. In the first place, it must hail, and the wood must fall, being beaten down with hail. We already know, from Isa 10:34, that “the wood” was an emblem of Assyria; and in Isa 30:30-31, we find “the hail” mentioned as one of the forces of nature that would prove destructive to Assyria. And secondly, “the city” (העיר, a play upon the word, and a counterpart to היּער) must first of all be brought low into lowliness (i.e., be deeply humiliated). Rosenmüller and others suppose the imperial city to be intended, according to parallels taken from chapters 24-27; but in this cycle of prophecies, in which the imperial city is never mentioned at all, “the city” must be Jerusalem, whose course from the false peace to the true lay through a humiliating punishment (Isa 29:2-4; Isa 30:19., Isa 31:4.). Isa 32:20

In the face of this double judgment, the prophet congratulates those who will live to see the times after the judgment. “Blessed are ye that sow by all waters, and let the foot of the oxen and asses rove in freedom.” Those who lived to see these times would be far and wide the lords of a quiet and fruitful land, cleared of its foes, and of all disturbers of peace. They would sow wherever they pleased, by all the waters that fertilized the soil, and therefore in a soil of the most productive kind, and one that required little if any trouble to cultivate. And inasmuch as everything would be in the most copious abundance, they would no longer need to watch with anxiety lest their oxen and asses should stray into the corn-fields, but would be able to let them wander wherever they pleased. There cannot be the slightest doubt that this is the correct explanation of the verse, according to Isa 30:23-25 (compare also Isa 7:21.).

This concludes the four woes, from which the fifth, that immediately follows, is distinguished by the fact, that in the former the Assyrian troubles are still in the future, whereas the fifth places us in the very midst of them. The prophet commenced (Isa 28:1-4) with the destruction of Samaria; he then threatened Judah and Jerusalem also. But it is uncommonly difficult to combine the different features of the threat into a complete picture. Sifting even to a small remnant is a leading thought, which runs through the threat. And we also read throughout the whole, that Asshur will meet with its own destruction in front of that very Jerusalem which it is seeking to destroy. But the prophet also knows, on the one hand, that Jerusalem is besieged by the Assyrians, and will not be rescued till the besieged city has been brought to the last extremity (Isa 29:1., Isa 31:4.); and, on the other hand, that this will reach even to the falling of the towers (Isa 30:25), the overthrow of the wall of the state (Isa 30:13-14), the devastation of the land, and the destruction of Jerusalem itself (Isa 32:12.); and for both of these he fixes the limit of a year (Isa 29:1; Isa 32:10). This double threat may be explained in the following manner. The judgments which Israel has still to endure, and the period of glory that will follow them, lie before the mental eye of the prophet like a long deep diorama. While threatening the existing generation, he penetrates more or less deeply into the judgments which lie in perspective before him. He threatens at one time merely a siege that will continue till it is brought to the utmost extremity; at another time utter destruction. But the imperial power intended, by which this double calamity is to be brought upon Judah, must be Assyria; since the prophet knew of no other in the earliest years of Hezekiah, when these threatening addresses were uttered. And this gives rise to another difficulty. Not only was the worst prediction - namely, that of the destruction of Jerusalem - not fulfilled; but even the milder prophecy - namely, that of a siege, which would bring them to the deepest distress - was not accomplished. There never was any actual siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians. The explanation of this is, that, according to Jer 18:7-8, and Jer 18:9, Jer 18:10, neither the threatenings of punishment nor the promises of blessing uttered by the prophets were so unconditional, that they were certain to be fulfilled and that with absolute necessity, at such and such a time, or upon such and such a generation. The threatened punishment might be repealed or modified, if repentance ensued on the part of the persons threatened (Jon 3:4; 1Ki 21:29; 2Ki 22:15-20; 2Ch 12:5-8). The words of the prophecy did not on that account fall to the ground. If they produced repentance, they answered the very purpose for which they were intended; but if the circumstances which called for punishment should return, their force returned as well in all its fulness. If the judgment was one irrevocably determined, it was merely delayed by this, to be discharged upon the generation which should be ripest for it. And we have also an express historical testimony, which shows that this is the way in which the non-fulfilment of what Isaiah threatened as about to take place within a year is to be accounted for. Not only Isaiah, but also his contemporary Micah, threatened, that along with the judgment upon Samaria, the same judgment would also burst upon Jerusalem. Zion would be ploughed as a field, Jerusalem would be laid in ruins, and the temple mountain would be turned into a wooded height (Mic 3:12). This prophecy belongs to the first year of Hezekiah’s reign, for it was then that the book of Micah was composed. But we read in Jer 26:18-19, that, in their alarm at this prophecy, Hezekiah and all Judah repented, and that Jehovah withdrew His threat in consequence. Thus, in the very first year of Hezekiah, a change for the better took place in Judah; and this was necessarily followed by the withdrawal of Isaiah’s threatenings, just as those threatenings had co-operated in the production of this conversion (see Caspari, Micha, p. 160ff.). Not one of the three threats (Isa 29:1-4; Isa 32:9-14; Mic 3:12), which form an ascending climax, was fulfilled. Previous threatenings so far recovered their original force, when the insincerity of the conversion became apparent, that the Assyrians did unquestionably march through Judah, devastating everything as they went along. But because of Hezekiah’s self-humiliation and faith, the threat was turned from that time forward into a promise. In direct opposition to his former threatening, Isaiah now promised that Jerusalem would not be besieged by the Assyrians (Isa 37:33-35), but that, before the siege was actually established, Assyria would fall under the walls of Jerusalem.

‏ Isaiah 33

Isa 33:1

We are now in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign. The threatenings of the first years, which the repentance of the people had delayed, are now so far in force again, and so far actually realized, that the Assyrians are already in Judah, and have not only devastated the land, but are threatening Jerusalem. The element of promise now gains the upper hand, the prophet places himself between Asshur and his own nation with the weapons of prophecy and prayer, and the woe turns from the latter to the former. “Woe, devastator, and thyself not devastated; and thou spoiler, and still not spoiled! Hast thou done with devastating? thou shalt be devastated. Hast thou attained to rob? men rob thee.” Asshur is described as not devastated and not spoiled (which could not be expressed by a participle as with us, since bâgad is construed with Beth, and not with the accusative of the person), because it had not yet been visited by any such misfortune as that which had fallen upon other lands and nations. But it would be repaid with like for the like as soon as כּ indicating simultaneousness, as in Isa 30:19 and Isa 18:5, for example) its devastating and spoiling had reached the point determined by Jehovah. Instead of בך, we find in some codd. and editions the reading בו, which is equally admissible. In כּהתימך (from תּמם) the radical syllable is lengthened, instead of having dagesh. כּנּלתך is equivalent to כּהנלותך, a hiphil syncopated for the sake of rhythm (as in Isa 3:8; Deu 1:33, and many other passages), written here with dagesh dirmens, from the verb nâlâh, which is attested also by Job 15:29. The coincidence in meaning with the Arab. verb nâl (fut. i and u), to acquire or attain (see Comm. on Job, at Job 15:29 and Job 30:24-27), has been admitted by the earliest of the national grammarians, Ben-Koreish, Chayug, etc. The conjecture כּכלּותך (in addition to which Cappellus proposed כנלאותך) is quite unnecessary. The play upon the sound sets forth the punishment of the hitherto unpunished one as the infallible echo of its sin. Isa 33:2

In Isa 33:2 the prophet’s word of command is changed into a believing prayer: “Jehovah, be gracious to us; we wait for Thee: be their arm with every morning, yea, our salvation in time of need!” “Their arm,” i.e., the power which shelters and defends them, viz., Thy people and my own. “Yea,” 'aph, is emphatic. Israel’s arm every morning, because the danger is renewed every day; Israel’s salvation, i.e., complete deliverance (Isa 25:9), because the culminating point of the trouble is still in prospect. Isa 33:3-4

While the prophet is praying thus, he already sees the answer. “At the sound of a noise peoples pass away; at Thy rising nations are scattered. And your booty is swept away as a swarm of locusts sweeps away; as beetles run, they run upon it.” The indeterminate hâmōn, which produces for that very reason the impression of something mysterious and terrible, is at once explained. The noise comes from Jehovah, who is raising Himself judicially above Assyria, and thunders as a judge. Then the hostile army runs away (נפצוּ = נפצּוּ, from the niphal נפץ, 1Sa 13:11, from פּץ = נפוץ, from פּוּץ); and your booty (the address returns to Assyria) is swept away, just as when a swarm of locusts settles on a field, it soon eats it utterly away. Jerome, Cappellus, and others follow the Septuagint rendering, ὃν τρόπον ἐάν τις συναγάγη ἀκρίδας. The figure is quite as appropriate, but the article in hechâsı̄l makes the other view the more natural one; and Isa 33:4 places this beyond all doubt. Shâqaq, from which the participle shōqēq and the substantive masshâq are derived, is sued here, as in Joe 2:9, to signify a busy running hither and thither (discursitare). The syntactic use of shōqēq is the same as that of קרא (they call) in Isa 21:11, and sōphedı̄m (they smite) in Isa 32:12. The inhabitants of Jerusalem swarm in the enemy’s camp like beetles; they are all in motion, and carry off what they can. Isa 33:5-6

The prophet sees this as he prays, and now feasts himself on the consequences of this victory of Jehovah, prophesying in Isa 33:5, Isa 33:6 : “Jehovah is exalted; for, dwelling on high, He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness. And there will be security of thy times, riches of salvation, of wisdom, and knowledge. Fear of Jehovah is then the treasure of Judah.” Exalted: for though highly exalted in Himself, He has performed an act of justice and righteousness, with the sight and remembrance of which Zion is filled as with an overflowing rich supply of instruction and praise. A new time has dawned for the people of Judah. The prophet addresses them in Isa 33:6; for there is nothing to warrant us in regarding the words as addressed to Hezekiah. To the times succeeding this great achievement there would belong 'emūnâh, i.e., (durability (Exo 17:12) - a uniform and therefore trustworthy state of things (compare Isa 39:8, “peace and truth”). Secondly, there would also belong to them חסן, a rich store of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge (compare the verb in Isa 23:18). We regard these three ideas as all connected with chōsen. The prophet makes a certain advance towards the unfolding of the seven gifts in Isa 11:2, which are implied in “salvation;” but he hurries at once to the lowest of them, which forms the groundwork of all the rest, when he says, thirdly, that the fear of Jehovah will be the people’s treasure. The construct form, chokhmath, instead of chokhmâh, is a favourite one, which Isaiah employs, even apart from the genitive relation of the words, for the purpose of securing a closer connection, as Isa 35:2; Isa 51:21 (compare pârash in Eze 26:10), clearly show. In the case before us, it has the further advantage of consonance in the closing sound. Isa 33:7-10

The prophet has thus run through the whole train of thought with a few rapid strides, in accordance with the custom which we have already frequently noticed; and now he commences afresh, mourning over the present miserable condition of things, in psalm-like elegiac tones, and weeping with his weeping people. “Behold, their heroes weep without; the messengers of peace weep bitterly. Desolate are roads, disappeared are travellers; he has broken covenant, insulted cities, despised men. The land mourns, languishes; Lebanon stands ashamed, parched; the meadow of Sharon has become like a steppe, and Bashan and Carmel shake their leaves.” אראלּם is probably chosen with some allusion to 'Ariel, the name of Jerusalem in chapter 29; but it has a totally different meaning. We have rendered it “heroes,” because אראל is here synonymous with אראל in the Nibelung-like piece contained in 2Sa 23:20 and 1Ch 11:22. This 'ărı̄'ēl, which is here contracted into 'er'el (compare the biblical name 'Ar'ēlı̄ and the post-biblical name of the angels, 'Er'ellı̄m), is compounded of 'arı̄ (a lion) and ‛El (God), and therefore signifies “the lion of God,” but in this sense, that El (God) gives to the idea of leonine courage merely the additional force of extraordinary or wonderful; and as a composite word, it contents itself with a singular, with a collective sense according to circumstances, without forming any plural at all. The dagesh is to be explained from the fact that the word (which tradition has erroneously regarded as a compound of להם אראה) is pointed in accordance with the form כּרמל (כרמלּו). The heroes intended by the prophet were the messengers sent to Sennacherib to treat with him for peace. They carried to him the amount of silver and gold which he had demanded as the condition of peace (2Ki 18:14). But Sennacherib broke the treaty, by demanding nothing less than the surrender of Jerusalem itself. Then the heroes of Jerusalem cried aloud, when they arrived at Jerusalem, and had to convey this message of disgrace and alarm to the king and nation; and bitterly weeping over such a breach of faith, such deception and disgrace, the embassy, which had been sent off, to the deep self-humiliation of Judah and themselves, returned to Jerusalem. Moreover, Sennacherib continued to storm the fortified places, in violation of his agreement (on mâ'as ‛arı̄m, see 2Ki 18:13). The land was more and more laid waste, the fields were trodden down; and the autumnal aspect of Lebanon, with its faded foliage, and of Bashan and Carmel, with their falling leaves, looked like shame and grief at the calamities of the land. It was in the autumn, therefore, that the prophet uttered these complaints; and the definition of the time given in his prophecy (Isa 32:10) coincides with this. קמל is the pausal form for קמל, just as in other places an ē with the tone, which has sprung from i, easily passes into a in pause; the sharpening of the syllable being preferred to the lengthening of it, not only when the syllable which precedes the tone syllable is an open one, but sometimes even when it is closed (e.g., Jdg 6:19, ויּגּשׁ). Instead of כּערבה we should read כּערבה (without the article), as certain codd. and early editions do. ^{▼▼We find the same in Zec 14:10, and כּערבים in Isa 44:4, whereas we invariably have בּערבה (see Michlol, 45 b), just as we always find בּאבנים, and on the other hand כּבנים.}

Isaiah having mourned in the tone of the Psalms, now comforts himself with the words of a psalm. Like David in Psa 12:6, he hears Jehovah speak. The measure of Asshur’s iniquity is full; the hour of Judah’s redemption is come; Jehovah has looked on long enough, as though sitting still (Isa 18:4). Isa 33:10 “Now will I arise, saith Jehovah, now exalt myself, now lift up myself.” Three times does the prophet repeat the word ‛attâh (now), which is so significant a word with all the prophets, but more especially with Hosea and Isaiah, and which always fixes the boundary-line and turning-point between love and wrath, wrath and love. ארומם (in half pause for ארוממא is contracted from עתרומם (Ges. §54, 2,b). Jehovah would rise up from His throne, and show Himself in all His greatness to the enemies of Israel. Isa 33:11

After the prophet has heard this from Jehovah, he knows how it will fare with them. He therefore cries out to them in triumph (Isa 33:11), “Ye are pregnant with hay, ye bring forth stubble! Your snorting is the fire that will devour you.” Their vain purpose to destroy Jerusalem comes to nothing; their burning wrath against Jerusalem becomes the fire of wrath, which consumes them (for chashash and qash, see at Isa 5:24). Isa 33:12

The prophet announces this to them, and now tells openly what has been exhibited to him in his mental mirror as the purpose of God. “And nations become as lime burnings, thorns cut off, which are kindled with fire.” The first simile sets forth the totality of the destruction: they will be so completely burned up, that nothing but ashes will be left, like the lump of lime left at the burning of lime. The second contains a figurative description of its suddenness: they have vanished suddenly, like dead brushwood, which is cut down in consequence, and quickly crackles up and is consumed (Isa 5:24, cf., Isa 9:17): kâsach is the Targum word for zâmar, amputare, whereas in Arabic it has the same meaning as sâchâh, verrere. Isa 33:13-14

But the prophet, while addressing Asshur, does not overlook those sinners of his own nation who are deserving of punishment. The judgment upon Asshur is an alarming lesson, not only for the heathen, but for Israel also; for there is no respect of persons with Jehovah. “Hear, ye distant ones, what I have accomplished; and perceive, ye near ones, my omnipotence! The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling seizes the hypocrites: who of us can abide with devouring fire? who of us abide with everlasting burnings?” Even for the sinners in Jerusalem also there is no abiding in the presence of the Almighty and Just One, who has judged Asshur (the act of judgment is regarded by the prophet as having just occurred); they must either repent, or they cannot remain in His presence. Jehovah, so far as His wrath is concerned, is “a consuming fire” (Deu 4:24; Deu 9:3); and the fiery force of His anger is “everlasting burnings” (mōkedē ‛ōlâm), inasmuch as it consists of flames that are never extinguished, never burn themselves out. And this God had His fire and His furnace in Jerusalem (Isa 31:9), and had just shown what His fire could do, when once it burst forth. Therefore do the sinners inquire in their alarm, whilst confessing to one another (lânū; cf., Amo 9:1) that none of them can endure it, “Who can dwell with devouring fire?” etc. (gūr with the acc. loci, as in Psa 5:5). Isa 33:15-16

The prophet answers their question. “He that walketh in righteousness, and speaketh uprightness; he that despiseth gain of oppressions, whose hand keepeth from grasping bribes; he that stoppeth his ear from hearing murderous counsel, and shutteth his eyes from looking at evil; he will dwell upon high places; rocky fastnesses are his castle; his bread is abundant, his waters inexhaustible.” Isaiah’s variation of Psa 15:1-5 and Psa 24:3-6 (as Jer 17:5-8 contains Jeremiah’s variation of Psa 1:1-6). Tsedâqōth is the accusative of the object, so also is mēshârı̄m: he who walks in all the relations of life in the full measure of righteousness, i.e., who practises it continually, and whose words are in perfect agreement with his inward feelings and outward condition. The third quality is, that he not only does not seek without for any gain which injures the interests of his neighbour, but that he inwardly abhors it. The fourth is, that he diligently closes his hands, his ears, and his eyes, against all danger of moral pollution. Bribery, which others force into his hand, he throws away (cf., Neh 5:13); against murderous suggestions, or such as stimulate revenge, hatred, and violence, he stops his ear; and from sinful sights he closes his eyes firmly, and that without even winking. Such a man has no need to fear the wrath of God. Living according to the will of God, he lives in the love of God; and in that he is shut in as it were upon the inaccessible heights and in the impregnable walls of a castle upon a rock. He suffers neither hunger nor thirst; but his bread is constantly handed to him (nittân, partic.), namely, by the love of God; and his waters never fail, for God, the living One, makes them flow. This is the picture of a man who has no need to be alarmed at the judgment of God upon Asshur. Isa 33:17

Over this picture the prophet forgets the sinners in Zion, and greets with words of promise the thriving church of the future. “Thine eyes will see the king in his beauty, will see a land that is very far off.” The king of Judah, hitherto so deeply humbled, and, as Micah instances by way of example, “smitten upon the cheeks,” is then glorified by the victory of his God; and the nation, constituted as described in Isa 33:15, Isa 33:16, will see him in his God-given beauty, and see the land of promise, cleared of enemies as far as the eye can reach and the foot carry, restored to Israel without reserve, and under the dominion of this sovereign enjoying all the blessedness of peace. Isa 33:18-19

The tribulation has passed away like a dream. “Thy heart meditates upon the shuddering. Where is the valuer? where the weigher? where he who counted the towers? The rough people thou seest no more, the people of deep inaudible lip, of stammering unintelligible tongue.” The dreadful past is so thoroughly forced out of mind by the glorious present, that they are obliged to turn back their thoughts (hâgâh, meditari, as Jerome renders it) to remember it at all. The sōphēr who had the management of the raising of the tribute, the shōqēl who tested the weight of the gold and silver, the sōpher 'eth hammigdâl who drew up the plan of the city to be besieged or stormed, are all vanished. The rough people (נועז עם, the niphal of עזז, from יעז), that had shown itself so insolent, so shameless, and so insatiable in its demands, has become invisible. This attribute is a perfectly appropriate one; and the explanation given by Rashi, Vitringa, Ewald, and Fürst, who take it in the sense of lō‛ēz in Psa 114:1, is both forced and groundless. The expressions ‛imkē and nil‛ag refer to the obscure and barbarous sound of their language; misshemōă to the unintelligibility of their speech; and בּינה אין to the obscurity of their meaning. Even if the Assyrians spoke a Semitic language, they were of so totally different a nationality, and their manners were so entirely different, that their language must have sounded even more foreign to an Israelite than Dutch to a German. Isa 33:20

And how will Jerusalem look when Asshur has been dashed to pieces on the strong fortress? The prophet passes over here into the tone of Psa 48:1-14 (Psa 48:13, Psa 48:14). Psa 46:1-11 and Psa 48:1-14 probably belong to the time of Jehoshaphat; but they are equally applicable to the deliverance of Jerusalem in the time of Hezekiah. “Look upon Zion, the castle of our festal meeting. Thine eyes will see Jerusalem, a pleasant place, a tent that does not wander about, whose pegs are never drawn, and none of whose cords are ever broken.” Jerusalem stands there unconquered and inviolable, the fortress where the congregation of the whole land celebrates its feasts, a place full of good cheer (Isa 32:18), in which everything is now arranged for a continuance. Jerusalem has come out of tribulation stronger than ever - not a nomadic wandering tent (tsâ‛am, a nomad word, to wander, lit., to pack up = tâ‛an in Gen 45:17), but one set up for a permanent dwelling. Isa 33:21-22

It is also a great Lord who dwells therein, a faithful and almighty defender. “No, there dwells for us a glorious One, Jehovah; a place of streams, canals of wide extent, into which no fleet of rowing vessels ventures, and which no strong man of war shall cross. For Jehovah is our Judge; Jehovah is our war-Prince; Jehovah is our King; He will bring us salvation.” Following upon the negative clauses in Isa 33:20, the next v. commences with kı̄ 'im (imo). Glorious ('addı̄r) is Jehovah, who has overthrown Lebanon, i.e., Assyria (Isa 10:34). He dwells in Jerusalem for the good of His people - a place of streams, i.e., one resembling a place of streams, from the fact that He dwells therein. Luzzatto is right in maintaining, that בּו and יעברנּוּ point back to מקום, and therefore that mekōm is neither equivalent to loco (tachath, instead of), which would be quite possible indeed, as 1Ki 21:19, if not Hos 2:1, clearly proves (cf., 1Ki 22:38), nor used in the sense of substitution or compensation. The meaning is, that, by virtue of Jehovah’s dwelling there, Jerusalem had become a place, or equivalent to a place, or broad streams, like those which in other instances defended the cities they surrounded (e.g., Babylon, the “twisted snake,” Isa 27:1), and of broad canals, which kept off the enemy, like moats around a fortification. The word יארים was an Egyptian word, that had become naturalized in Hebrew; nevertheless it is a very natural supposition, that the prophet was thinking of the No of Egypt, which was surrounded by waters, probably Nile-canals (see Winer, R.W. Nah 3:8). The adjective in which yâdaim brings out with greater force the idea of breadth, as in Isa 22:18 (“on both sides”), belongs to both the nouns, which are placed side by side, ὰσυνδέτως (because permutative). The presence of Jehovah was to Jerusalem what the broadest streams and canals were to other cities; and into these streams and canals, which Jerusalem had around it spiritually in Jehovah Himself, no rowing vessels ventured בּ הלך, ingredi). Luzzatto renders the word “ships of roving,” i.e., pirate ships; but this is improbable, as shūt, when used as a nautical word, signifies to row. Even a majestic tsı̄, i.e., trieris magna, could not cross it: a colossal vessel of this size would be wrecked in these mighty and dangerous waters. The figure is the same as that in Isa 26:1. In the consciousness of this inaccessible and impenetrable defence, the people of Jerusalem gloried in their God, who watched as a shōphēt over Israel’s rights and honour, who held as mechoqēq the commander’s rod, and ruled as melekh in the midst of Israel; so that for every future danger it was already provided with the most certain help. Isa 33:23-24

Now indeed it was apparently very different from this. It was not Assyria, but Jerusalem, that was like a ship about to be wrecked; but when that which had just been predicted should be fulfilled, Jerusalem, at present so powerless and sinful, would be entirely changed. “Thy ropes hang loose; they do not hold fast the support of thy mast; they do not hold the flag extended: then is booty of plunder divided in abundance; even lame men share the prey. And not an inhabitant will say, I am weak: the people settled there have their sins forgiven.” Nearly every commentator (even Luzzatto) has taken Isa 33:23 as addressed to Assyria, which, like a proud vessel of war, would cross the encircling river by which Jerusalem was surrounded. But Drechsler has very properly given up this view. The address itself, with the suffix ayikh (see at Isa 1:26), points to Jerusalem; and the reference to this gives the most appropriate sense, whilst the contrast between the now and then closes the prophecy in the most glorious manner. Jerusalem is now a badly appointed ship, dashed about by the storm, the sport of the waves. Its rigging hangs loose (Jerome, laxati sunt); it does not hold the kēn tornâm fast, i.e., the support of their mast, or cross beam with a hole in it, into which the mast is slipped (the mesodme of Homer, Od. xv 289), which is sure to go to ruin along with the falling mast, if the ropes do not assist its bearing power (malum sustinentes thecae succurrant, as Vitruvius says). And so the ropes of the ship Jerusalem do not keep the nēs spread out, i.e., the ἐπίσημον of the ship, whether we understand by it a flag or a sail, with a device worked upon it (see Winer, R.W. s. v. Schiffe). And this is the case with Jerusalem now; but then ('âz) it will be entirely different. Asshur is wrecked, and Jerusalem enriches itself, without employing any weapons, from the wealth of the Assyrian camp. It was with a prediction of this spoiling of Asshur that the prophet commenced in Isa 33:1; so that the address finishes as it began. But the closing words of the prophet are, that the people of Jerusalem are now strong in God, and are עון נשׂא (as in Psa 32:1), lifted up, taken away from their guilt. A people humbled by punishment, penitent, and therefore pardoned, would then dwell in Jerusalem. The strength of Israel, and all its salvation, rest upon the forgiveness of its sins. Finale of the Judgment upon All the World (More Especially upon Edom); Redemption of the People of Jehovah - Isaiah 34-35 part vi

These two chapters stand in precisely the same relation to chapters 28-33 as chapters 24-27 to chapters 13-23. In both instances the special prophecies connected with the history of the prophet’s own times are followed by a comprehensive finale of an apocalyptic character. We feel that we are carried entirely away from the stage of history. There is no longer that foreshortening, by which the prophet’s perspective was characterized before the fall of Assyria. The tangible shapes of the historical present, by which we have been hitherto surrounded, are now spiritualized into something perfectly ideal. We are transported directly into the midst of the last things; and the eschatological vision is less restricted, has greater mystical depth, belongs more to another sphere, and has altogether more of a New Testament character. The totally different impression which is thus made by chapters 34-35, as compared with chapters 28-33, must not cause any misgivings as to the authenticity of this closing prophecy. The relation in which Jeremiah and Zephaniah stand to chapters 34 and Isa 35:1-10, is quite sufficient to drive all doubts away. (Read Caspari’s article, “Jeremiah a Witness to the Genuineness of Isaiah 34, and therefore also to the Genuineness of Isaiah; 13:1-14:23, and Isa 21:1-10,” in the Lutherische Zeitschrift, 1843, 2; and Nägelsbach’s Jeremia und Babylon, pp. 107-113, on the relation of Jer 50-51 more especially to Isaiah 34-35.) There are many passages in Jeremiah (viz., Jer 25:31, Jer 25:22-23; Jer 46:10; Jer 50:27, Jer 50:39; Jer 51:40) which cannot be explained in any other way than on the supposition that Jeremiah had the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 34 before him. We cannot escape from the conclusion, that just as we find Jeremiah introducing earlier prophecies generally into his cycle of prophecies against the nations, and, in the addresses already mentioned, borrowing from Amos and Nahum, and placing side by side with a passage from Amos (compare Jer 25:30 with Amo 1:2) one of a similar character, and agreeing with Isaiah 34, so he also had Isaiah 34 and Isa 35:1-10 before him, and reproduced it in the same sense as he did other and earlier models. It is equally certain that Zep 1:7-8, and Zep 2:14, stand in a dependent relation to Isa 34:6, Isa 34:11; just as Zep 2:15 was taken from Isa 47:8, and Zep 1:7 fin. and Isa 3:11 from Isa 13:3; whilst Zep 2:14 also points back to Isa 13:21-22. We might, indeed, reverse the relation, and make Jeremiah and Zephaniah into the originals in the case of the passages mentioned; but this is opposed to the generally reproductive and secondary character of both these prophets, and also to the evident features of the passages in question. We might also follow Movers, De Wette, and Hitzig, who get rid of the testimony of Isaiah by assuming that the passages resting upon Isaiah 34, and other disputed prophecies of Isaiah, are interpolated; but this is opposed to the moral character of all biblical prophecy, and, moreover, it could only apply to Jeremiah, not to Zephaniah. We must in this case “bring reason into captivity to obedience” to the external evidence; though internal evidence also is not wanting to set a seal upon these external proofs. Just as chapters 24-27 are full of the clearest marks of Isaiah’s authorship, so is it also with chapters 34-35. It is not difficult to understand the marked contrast which we find between these two closing prophecies and the historical prophecies of the Assyrian age. These two closing prophecies were appended to chapters 13-23 and 28-33 at the time when Isaiah revised the complete collection. They belong to the latest revelations received by the prophet, to the last steps by which he reached that ideal height at which he soars in chapters 40-66, and from which he never descends again to the stage of passing history, which lay so far beneath. After the fall of Assyria, and when darkness began to gather on the horizon again, Isaiah broke completely away from his own times. “The end of all things” became more and more his own true home. The obscure foreground of his prophecies is no longer Asshur, which he has done with now so far as prophecy is concerned, but Babel (Babylon). And the bright centre of his prophecies is not the fall of Asshur (for this was already prophetically a thing of the past, which had not been followed by complete salvation), but deliverance from Babylon. And the bright noon-day background of his prophecies is no longer the realized idea of the kingdom of prophecy - realized, that is to say, in the one person of the Messiah, whose form had lost the sharp outlines of chapters 7-12 even in the prophecies of Hezekiah’s time - but the parousia of Jehovah, which all flesh would see. It was the revelation of the mystery of the incarnation of God, for which all this was intended to prepare the way. And there was no other way in which that could be done, than by completing the perfect portrait of the Messiah in the light of the ultimate future, so that both the factors in the prophecy might be assimilated. The spirit of Isaiah, more than that of any other prophet, was the laboratory of this great process in the history of revelation. The prophetic cycles in chapters 24-27 and 34-35 stand in the relation of preludes to it. In chapters 40-66 the process of assimilation is fully at work, and there is consequently no book of the Old Testament which has gone so thoroughly into New Testament depths, as this second part of the collection of Isaiah’s prophecies, which commences with a prediction of the parousia of Jehovah, and ends with the creation of the new heaven and new earth. Chapters 34 and Isa 35:1-10 are, as it were, the first preparatory chords. Edom here is what Moab was in chapters 24-27. By the side of Babylon, the empire of the world, whose policy of conquest led to its enslaving Israel, it represents the world in its hostility to Israel as the people of Jehovah. For Edom was Israel’s brother-nation, and hated Israel as the chosen people. In this its unbrotherly, hereditary hatred, it represented the sum-total of all the enemies and persecutors of the church of Jehovah. The special side-piece to chapter 34 is Isa 63:1-6.

‏ Isaiah 34

Isa 34:1-3

What the prophet here foretells relates to all nations, and to every individual within them, in their relation to the congregation of Jehovah. He therefore commences with the appeal in Isa 34:1-3 : “Come near, ye peoples, to hear; and he nations, attend. Let the earth hear, and that which fills it, the world, and everything that springs from it. For the indignation of Jehovah will fall upon all nations, and burning wrath upon all their host; He has laid the ban upon them, delivered them to the slaughter. And their slain are cast away, and their corpses - their stench will arise, and mountains melt with their blood.” The summons does not invite them to look upon the completion of the judgment, but to hear the prophecy of the future judgment; and it is issued to everything on the earth, because it would all have to endure the judgment upon the nations (see at Isa 5:25; Isa 13:10). The expression qetseph layehōvâh implies that Jehovah was ready to execute His wrath (compare yōm layehōvâh in Isa 34:8 and Isa 2:12). The nations that are hostile to Jehovah are slaughtered, the bodies remain unburied, and the streams of blood loosen the firm masses of the mountains, so that they melt away. On the stench of the corpses, compare Eze 39:11. Even if châsam, in this instance, does not mean “to take away the breath with the stench,” there is no doubt that Ezekiel had this prophecy of Isaiah in his mind, when prophesying of the destruction of Gog and Magog (Ezek 39). Isa 34:4

The judgment foretold by Isaiah also belongs to the last things; for it takes place in connection with the simultaneous destruction of the present heaven and the present earth.”And all the host of the heavens moulder away, and the heavens are rolled up like a scroll, and all their host withers as a leaf withers away from the vine, and like withered leaves from the fig-tree” (Nâmaq, to be dissolved into powdered mother (Isa 3:24; Isa 5:24); nâgōl (for nâgal, like nâzōl in Isa 63:19; Isa 64:2, and nârōts in Ecc 12:6), to be rolled up - a term applied to the cylindrical book-scroll. The heaven, that is to say, the present system of the universe, breaks up into atoms, and is rolled up like a book that has been read through; and the stars fall down as a withered leaf falls from a vine, when it is moved by even the lightest breeze, or like the withered leaves shaken from the fig-tree. The expressions are so strong, that they cannot be understood in any other sense than as relating to the end of the world (Isa 65:17; Isa 66:22; compare Mat 24:29). It is not sufficient to say that “the stars appear to fall to the earth,” though even Vitringa gives this explanation.

When we look, however, at the following kı̄ (for), it undoubtedly appears strange that the prophet should foretell the passing away of the heavens, simply because Jehovah judges Edom. But Edom stands here as the representative of all powers that are hostile to the church of God as such, and therefore expresses an idea of the deepest and widest cosmical signification (as Isa 24:21 clearly shows). And it is not only a doctrine of Isaiah himself, but a biblical doctrine universally, that God will destroy the present world as soon as the measure of the sin which culminates in unbelief, and in the persecution of the congregation of the faithful, shall be really full. Isa 34:5-7

If we bear this in mind, we shall not be surprised that the prophet gives the following reason for the passing away of the present heavens. “For my sword has become intoxicated in the heaven; behold, it comes down upon Edom, and upon the people of my ban to judgment. The sword of Jehovah fills itself with blood, is fattened with fat, with blood of lambs and he-goats, with kidney-fat of rams; for Jehovah has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. And buffaloes fall with them, and bullocks together with bulls; and their land become intoxicated with blood, and their dust fattened with fat.” Just as in chapter 63 Jehovah is represented as a treader of the wine-press, and the nations as the grapes; so here He is represented as offering sacrifice, and the nations as the animals offered (zebhach: cf., Zep 1:7; Jer 46:10); Eze 39:17.: all three passages founded upon this). Jehovah does not appear here in person as judge, as He does there, but His sword appears; just as in Gen 3:24, the “sword which turned every way” is mentioned as an independent power standing by the side of the cherub. The sword is His executioner, which has no sooner drunk deeply of wrath in heaven, i.e., in the immediate sphere of the Deity (rivvethâh, an intensive form of the kal, like pittēăch, Isa 48:8; Ewald, §120,d), than it comes down in wild intoxication upon Edom, the people of the ban of Jehovah, i.e., the people upon whom He has laid the ban, and there, as His instrument of punishment, fills itself with blood, and fattens itself with fat. הדּשׁנה is the hothpaal = התדּשׁנה, with the ת of the preformative syllable assimilated (compare הזּכּוּ in Isa 1:16, and אדּמּה in Isa 14:14). The penultimate has the tone, the nâh being treated as in the plural forms of the future. The dropping of the dagesh in the שׁ eht ni hse is connected with this. The reading מחלב, in Isa 34:6, is an error that has been handed down in modern copies (in opposition to both codices and ancient editions); for חלב (primary form, chilb) is the only form met with in the Old Testament. The lambs, he-goats, and rams, represent the Edomitish nation, which is compared to these smaller sacrificial animals. Edom and Bozrah are also placed side by side in Isa 63:1. The latter was one of the chief cities of the Edomites (Gen 36:33; Amo 1:12; Jer 49:13, Jer 49:22) - not the Bozrah in Auranitis (Haurân), however, which is well known in church history, but Bozrah in the mountains of Edom, upon the same site as the village of Buzaire (i.e., Minor Bozrah), which is still surrounded by its ruins. In contrast with the three names of the smaller animals in Isa 34:6, the three names of oxen in Isa 34:7 represent the lords of Edom. They also will fall, smitten by the sword (yâredū: cf., Jer 50:27; Jer 51:40; also Jer 48:15). The feast of the sword is so abundant, that even the earth and the dust of the land of Edom are satiated with blood and fat. Isa 34:8-10

Thus does Jehovah avenge His church upon Edom. “For Jehovah hath a day of vengeance, a year of recompense, to contend for Zion. And the brooks of Edom are turned into pitch, and its dust into brimstone, and its land becomes burning pitch. Day and night it is not quenched; the smoke of Edom goes up for ever: it lies waste from generation to generation; no one passes through it for ever and ever.” The one expression, “to contend for Zion,” is like a flash of lightning, throwing light upon the obscurity of prophecy, both backwards and forwards. A day and a year of judgment upon Edom (compare Isa 61:2; Isa 63:4) would do justice to Zion against its accusers and persecutors (rı̄bh, vindicare, as in Isa 51:22). The everlasting punishment which would fall upon it is depicted in figures and colours, suggested by the proximity of Edom to the Dead Sea, and the volcanic character of this mountainous country. The unquenchable fire (for which compare Isa 66:24), and the eternally ascending smoke (cf., Rev 19:3), prove that the end of all things is referred to. The prophet meant primarily, no doubt, that the punishment announced would fall upon the land of Edom, and within its geographical boundaries; but this particular punishment represented the punishment of all nations, and all men who were Edomitish in their feelings and conduct towards the congregation of Jehovah. Isa 34:11-12

The land of Edom, in this geographical and also emblematical sense, would become a wilderness; the kingdom of Edom would be for ever destroyed. “And pelican and hedgehog take possession of it, and eared-owl and raven dwell there; and he stretches over it the measure of Tohu and the level of Bohu. Its nobles - there is no longer a monarchy which they elected; and all its princes come to nought.” The description of the ruin, which commences in Isa 34:11 with a list of animals that frequent marshy and solitary regions, is similar to the one in Isa 13:20-22; Isa 14:23 (compare Zep 2:14, which is founded upon this). Isaiah’s was the original of all such pictures of ruin which we meet with in the later prophets. The qippōd is the hedgehog, although we find it here in the company of birds (from qâphad, to draw one’s self together, to roll up; see Isa 14:23). קאת is written here with a double kametz, as well as in Zep 2:14, according to codd. and Kimchi, W.B. (Targ. qâth, elsewhere qâq; Saad. and Abulwalid, qûq: see at Psa 102:7). According to well-established tradition, it is the long-necked pelican, which lives upon fish (the name is derived either from קוא, to vomit, or, as the construct is קאת, from a word קאה, formed in imitation of the animal’s cry). Yanshūph is rendered by the Targum qı̄ppōphı̄n (Syr. kafûfo), i.e., eared-owls, which are frequently mentioned in the Talmud as birds of ill omen (Rashi, or Berachoth 57 b, chouette). As the parallel to qâv, we have אבני (stones) here instead of משׁקלת, the level, in Isa 28:17. It is used in the same sense, however - namely, to signify the weight used in the plumb or level, which is suspended by a line. The level and the measure are commonly employed for the purpose of building up; but here Jehovah is represented as using these fore the purpose of pulling down (a figure met with even before the time of Isaiah: vid., Amo 7:7-9, cf., 2Ki 21:13; Lam 2:8), inasmuch as He carries out this negative reverse of building with the same rigorous exactness as that with which a builder carries out his well-considered plan, and throws Edom back into a state of desolation and desert, resembling the disordered and shapeless chaos of creation (compare Jer 4:23, where tōhū vâbhōhū represents, as it does here, the state into which a land is reduced by fire). תהוּ has no dagesh lene; and this is one of the three passages in which the opening mute is without a dagesh, although the word not only follows, but is closely connected with, one which has a soft consonant as its final letter (the others are Psa 68:18 and Eze 23:42). Thus the primeval kingdom with its early monarchy, which is long preceded that of Israel, is brought to an end (Gen 36:31). חריה stands at the head as a kind of protasis. Edom was an elective monarchy; the hereditary nobility electing the new king. But this would be done no more. The electoral princes of Edom would come to nothing. Not a trace would be left of all that had built up the glory of Edom. Isa 34:13-15

The allusion to the monarchy and the lofty electoral dignity leads the prophet on to the palaces and castles of the land. Starting with these, he carries out the picture of the ruins in Isa 34:13-15. “And the palaces of Edom break out into thorns, nettles and thistles in its castles; and it becomes the abode of wild dogs, pasture for ostriches. And martens meet with jackals, and a wood-devil runs upon its fellow; yea, Liiliith dwells there, and finds rest for itself. There the arrow-snake makes its nest, and breeds and lays eggs, and broods in the shadow there; yea, there vultures gather together one to another.” The feminine suffixes refer to Edom, as they did in the previous instance, as בּת־אדום or אדום ארץ. On the tannı̄m, tsiyyı̄m, and 'iyyı̄m, see at Isa 13:21-22. It is doubtful whether châtsı̄r here corresponds to the Arabic word for an enclosure (= חצר), as Gesenius, Hitzig, and others suppose, as elsewhere to the Arabic for green, a green field, or garden vegetable. We take it in the latter sense, viz., a grassy place, such as was frequented by ostriches, which live upon plants and fruits. The word tsiyyim (steppe animals) we have rendered “martens,” as the context requires a particular species of animals to be named. This is the interpretation given by Rashi (in loc.) and Kimchi in Jer 50:39 to the Targum word tamvân. We do not render 'iyyı̄m “wild cats” (chattūilin), but “jackals,” after the Arabic. קרא with על we take in the sense of קרה (as in Exo 5:3). Lı̄lı̄th (Syr. and Zab. lelitho), lit., the creature of the night, was a female demon (shēdâh) of the popular mythology; according to the legends, it was a malicious fairy that was especially hurtful to children, like some of the fairies of our own fairy tales. There is life in Edom still; but what a caricature of that which once was there! In the very spot where the princes of Edom used to proclaim the new king, satyrs now invite one another to dance (Isa 13:21); and there kings and princes once slept in their palaces and country houses, the lı̄lı̄th, which is most at home in horrible places, finds, as though after a prolonged search, the most convenient and most comfortable resting-place. Demons and serpents are not very far distant from one another. The prophet therefore proceeds in Isa 34:15 to the arrow-snake, or springing-snake (Arabic qiffâze, from qâphaz, related to qâphats, Sol 2:8, to prepare for springing, or to spring; a different word from qippōd, which has the same root). This builds its nest in the ruins; there it breeds (millēt, to let its eggs slide out) and lays eggs (bâqa‛, to split, i.e., to bring forth); and then it broods in the shade (dâgar is the Targum word in Job 39:14 for chimmēm (ithpael in Lam 1:20 for חמרמר), and is also used in the rabbinical writings for fovere, as Jerome renders it here). The literal sense of the word is probably to keep the eggs together (Targum, Jer 17:11, בּעין מכנּשׁ, lxx συνήγαγεν), since דּגר (syn. חמּר) signifies “to collect.” Rashi has therefore explained it in both passages as meaning glousser, to cluck, the noise by which a fowl calls its brood together. The dayyâh is the vulture. These fowls and most gregarious birds of prey also collect together there. Isa 34:16-17

Whenever any one compared the prophecy with the fulfilment, they would be found to coincide. “Search in the book of Jehovah, and read! Not one of the creatures fails, not one misses the other: for my mouth - it has commanded it; and His breath - it has brought them together. And He has cast the lot for them, and His hand has assigned it (this land)to them by measure: they will possess it for ever; to generation and generation they will dwell therein.” The phrase על כּתב is used for entering in a book, inasmuch as what is written there is placed upon the page; and מעל דּרשׁ for searching in a book, inasmuch as a person leans over the book when searching in it, and gets the object of his search out of it. The prophet applied the title “The Book of Jehovah” to his collection of the prophecies with which Jehovah had inspired him, and which He had commanded him to write down. Whoever lived to see the time when the judgment should come upon Edom, would have only to look inquiringly into this holy scripture; and if he compared what was predicted there with what had been actually realized, he would find the most exact agreement between them. The creatures named, which loved to frequent the marshes and solitary places, and ruins, would all really make their homes in what had once been Edom. But the satyrs and the lı̄lı̄th, which were only the offspring of the popular belief - what of them? They, too, would be there; for in the sense intended by the prophet they were actual devils, which he merely calls by well-known popular names to produce a spectral impression. Edom would really become a rendezvous for all the animals mentioned, as well as for such unearthly spirits as those which he refers to here. The prophet, or rather Jehovah, whose temporary organ he was, still further confirms this by saying, “My mouth hath commanded it, and His breath has brought them (all these creatures) together.” As the first creating word proceeded from the mouth of Jehovah, so also does the word of prophecy, which resembles such a word; and the breath of the mouth of Jehovah, i.e., His Spirit, is the power which accomplishes the fiat of prophecy, as it did that of creation, and moulds all creatures and their history according to the will and counsel of God (Psa 33:6). In the second part of Isa 34:16 the prophet is speaking of Jehovah; whereas in the first Jehovah speaks through him - a variation which vanishes indeed if we read פּיו (Olshausen on Job 9:2), or, what would be better, פּיהוּ, but which may be sustained by a hundred cases of a similar kind. There is a shadow, as it were, of this change in the להם, which alternates with להן in connection with the animals named. The suffix of chilleqattâh (without mappik, as in 1Sa 1:6) refers to the land of Edom. Edom is, as it were, given up by a divine lot, and measured off with a divine measure, to be for ever the horrible abode of beasts and demons such as those described. A prelude of the fulfilment of this swept over the mountainous land of Edom immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem (see Köhler on Mal 1:2-5); and it has never risen to its previous state of cultivation again. It swarms with snakes, and the desolate mountain heights and barren table-lands are only inhabited by wild crows and eagles, and great flocks of birds. But the ultimate fulfilment, to which the appeal in Isa 34:16 refers, is still in the future, and will eventually fall upon the abodes of those who spiritually belong to that circle of hostility to Jehovah (Jesus) and His church, of which ancient Edom was merely the centre fixed by the prophet.

‏ Isaiah 35

Isa 35:1-2

Edom falls, never to rise again. Its land is turned into a horrible wilderness. But, on the other hand, the wilderness through which the redeemed Israel returns, is changed into a flowery field. “Gladness fills the desert and the heath; and the steppe rejoices, and flowers like the crocus. It flowers abundantly, and rejoices; yea, rejoicing and singing: the glory of Lebanon is given to it, the splendour of Carmel and the plain of Sharon; they will see the glory of Jehovah, the splendour of our God.” מדבּר ישׂשׂוּם (to be accentuated with tiphchah munach, not with mercha tiphchah) has been correctly explained by Aben-Ezra. The original Nun has been assimilated to the following Mem, just as pidyōn in Num 3:49 is afterwards written pidyōm (Ewald, §91,b). The explanation given by Rashi, Gesenius, and others (laetabuntur his), is untenable, if only because sūs (sı̄s) cannot be construed with the accusative of the object (see at Isa 8:6); and to get rid of the form by correction, as Olshausen proposes, is all the more objectionable, because “the old full plural in ūn is very frequently met with before Mem” (Böttcher), in which case it may have been pronounced as it is written here. ^{▼▼Böttcher calls ûm the oldest primitive form of the plural; but it is only a strengthening of ûn; cf., tannı̄m = tannı̄n, Hanameel = Hananeel, and such Sept. forms as Gesem, Madiam, etc. (see Hitzig on Jer 32:7). Wetzstein told me of a Bedouin tribe, in whose dialect the third pers. praet. regularly ended in m, e.g., akalum (they have eaten).}

According to the Targum on Sol 2:1 (also Saad., Abulw.), the chăbhatstseleth is the narcissus; whilst the Targum on the passage before us leaves it indefinite - sicut lilia. The name (a derivative of bâtsal) points to a bulbous plant, probably the crocus and primrose, which were classed together. ^{▼▼The crocus and the primrose (המצליתא in Syriac) may really be easily confounded, but not the narcissus and primrose, which have nothing in common except that they are bulbous plants, like most of the flowers of the East, which shoot up rapidly in the spring, as soon as the winter rains are over. But there are other colchicaceae beside our colchicum autumnale, which flowers before the leaves appear and is therefore called filius ante patrem (e.g., the eastern colchicum variegatum).}

The sandy steppe would become like a lovely variegated plain covered with meadow flowers. ^{▼▼Layard, in his Nineveh and Babylon, describes in several places the enchantingly beautiful and spring-like variation of colours which occurs in the Mesopotamian “desert;” though what the prophet had in his mind was not the real midâr, or desert of pasture land, but, as the words tsiyâh and ‛arâbhâh show, the utterly barren sandy desert.}

On gı̄lath, see at Isa 33:6 (cf., Isa 65:18): the infin. noun takes the place of an inf. abs., which expresses the abstract verbal idea, though in a more rigid manner; 'aph (like gam in Gen 31:15; Gen 46:4) is an exponent of the increased emphasis already implied in the gerunds that come after. So joyful and so gloriously adorned will the barren desert, which has been hitherto so mournful, become, on account of the great things that are in store for it. Lebanon, Carmel, and Sharon have, as it were, shared their splendour with the desert, that all might be clothed alike in festal dress, when the glory of Jehovah, which surpasses everything self in its splendour, should appear; that glory which they would not only be privileged to behold, but of which they would be honoured to be the actual scene. Isa 35:3-4

The prophet now exclaims to the afflicted church, in language of unmixed consolation, that Jehovah is coming. “Strengthen ye the weak hands, and make the trembling knees strong! Say to those of a terrified heart, Be strong! Fear ye not! Behold, your God will come for vengeance, for a divine retribution: He will come, and bring you salvation.” Those who have become weak in faith, hopeless and despairing, are to cheer up; and the stronger are to tell such of their brethren as are perplexed and timid, to be comforted now: for Jehovah is coming nâqâm (i.e., as vengeance), and gemūl 'Elōhı̄m (i.e., as retribution, such as God the highly exalted and Almighty Judge inflicts; the expression is similar to that in Isa 30:27; Isa 13:9, cf., Isa 40:10, but a bolder one; the words in apposition stand as abbreviations of final clauses). The infliction of punishment is the immediate object of His coming, but the ultimate object is the salvation of His people (וישעכם a contracted future form, which is generally confined to the aorist). Isa 35:5-7 “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame man leap as the stag, and the tongue of the dumb man shout; for waters break out in the desert, and brooks in the steppe. And the mirage becomes a fish-pond, and the thirsty ground gushing water-springs; in the place of jackals, where it lies, there springs up grass with reeds and rushes.” The bodily defects mentioned here there is no reason for regarding as figurative representations of spiritual defects. The healing of bodily defects, however, is merely the outer side of what is actually effected by the coming of Jehovah (for the other side, comp. Isa 32:3-4). And so, also, the change of the desert into a field abounding with water is not a mere poetical ornament; for in the last times, he era of redemption, nature itself will really share in the doxa which proceeds from the manifested God to His redeemed. Shârâb (Arab. sarâb) is essentially the same thing as that which we call in the western languages the mirage, or Fata morgana; not indeed every variety of this phenomenon of the refraction of light, through strata of air of varying density lying one above another, but more especially that appearance of water, which is produced as if by magic in the dry, sandy desert ^{▼▼See. G. Rawlinson, Monarchies, i. p. 38.} (literally perhaps the “desert shine,” just as we speak of the “Alpine glow;” see Isa 49:10). The antithesis to this is 'ăgam (Chald. 'agmâ', Syr. egmo, Ar. agam), a fish-pond (as in Isa 41:18, different from 'âgâm in Isa 19:10). In the arid sandy desert, where the jackal once had her lair and suckled her young (this is, according to Lam 4:3, the true explanation of the permutative ribhtsâh, for which ribhtsâm would be in some respects more suitable), grass springs up even into reeds and rushes; so that, as Isa 43:20 affirms, the wild beasts of the desert praise Jehovah. Isa 35:8-10

In the midst of such miracles, by which all nature is glorified, the people of Jehovah are redeemed, and led home to Zion. “And a highway rises there, and a road, and it will be called the Holy Road; no unclean man will pass along it, as it is appointed for them: whoever walks the road, even simple ones do not go astray. There will be no lion there, and the most ravenous beast of prey will not approach it, will not be met with there; and redeemed ones walk. And the ransomed of Jehovah will return, and come to Zion with shouting, and everlasting joy upon their head: they lay hold of gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing flee away.” Not only unclean persons from among the heathen, but even unclean persons belonging to Israel itself, will never pass along that holy road; none but the church purified and sanctified through sufferings, and those connected with it. למו הוּא, to them, and to them alone, does this road belong, which Jehovah has made and secured, and which so readily strikes the eye, that even an idiot could not miss it; whilst it lies to high, that no beast of prey, however powerful (perı̄ts chayyōth, a superlative verbal noun: Ewald, §313,c), could possibly leap up to it: not one is ever encountered by the pilgrim there. The pilgrims are those whom Jehovah has redeemed and delivered, or set free from captivity and affliction (גּאל, לג, related to חל, solvere; פּדה, פד, scindere, abscindere). Everlasting joy soars above their head; they lay fast hold of delight and joy (compare on Isa 13:8), so that it never departs from them. On the other hand, sorrow and sighing flee away. The whole of Isa 35:10 is like a mosaic from Isa 51:11; Isa 61:7; Isa 51:3; and what is affirmed of the holy road, is also affirmed in Isa 52:1 of the holy city (compare Isa 62:12; Isa 63:4). A prelude of the fulfilment is seen in what Ezra speaks of with gratitude to God in Ezr 8:31. We have intentionally avoided crowding together the parallel passages from chapters 40-66. The whole chapter is, in every part, both in thought and language, a prelude of that book of consolation for the exiles in their captivity. Not only in its spiritual New Testament thoughts, but also in its ethereal language, soaring high as it does in majestic softness and light, the prophecy has now reached the highest point of its development. Fulfilments of Prophecy; Prophecies Belonging to the Fourteenth Year of Hezekiah’s Reign; and the Times Immediately Following - Isaiah 36-39 part vii

To the first six books of Isaiah’s prophecies there is now appended a seventh. The six form three syzygies. In the “Book of Hardening,” chapters 1-6 (apart from chapter 1, which belonged to the times of Uzziah and Jotham), we saw Israel’s day of grace brought to an end. In the “Book of Immanuel,” chapters 7-12 (from the time of Ahaz), we saw the judgment of hardening and destruction in its first stage of accomplishment; but Immanuel was pledge that, even if the great mass should perish, neither the whole of Israel nor the house of David would be destroyed. The separate judgments through which the way was to be prepared for the kingdom of Immanuel, are announced in the “Book concerning the Nations,” chapters 13-23 (from the time of Ahaz and Hezekiah); and the general judgment in which they would issue, and after which a new Israel would triumph, is foretold in the “Book of the great Catastrophe,” chapters 24-27 (after the fifteenth year of Hezekiah). These two syzygies form the first great orbit of the collection. A second opens with the “Book of Woes, or of the Precious Corner-stone,” chapters 28-33 (ch. 28-32, from the first years of Hezekiah, and chapter 33 from the fourteenth year), by the side of which is placed the “Book of the Judgment upon Edom, and of the Restoration of Israel,” chapters 34-35 (after Hezekiah’s fifteenth year). The former shows how Ephraim succumbs to the power of Asshur, and Judah’s trust in Egypt is put to shame; the latter, how the world, with its hostility to the church, eventually succumbs to the vengeance of Jehovah, whereas the church itself is redeemed and glorified. Then follows, in chapters 36-39, a “Book of Histories,” which returns from the ideal distances of chapters 34-35 to the historical realities of chapters 33, and begins by stating that “at the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field,” where Ahaz had formerly preferred the help of Asshur to that of Jehovah, there stood an embassy from the king of Asshur with a detachment of his army (Isa 36:2), scornfully demanding the surrender of Jerusalem.

Just as we have found throughout a well-considered succession and dovetailing of the several parts, so here we can see reciprocal bearings, which are both designed and expressive; and it is à priori a probable thing that Isaiah, who wrote the historical introduction to the Judaeo-Assyrian drama in the second book, is the author of the concluding act of the same drama, which is here the subject of Book 7. The fact that the murder of Sennacherib is related in Isa 37:37-38, in accordance with the prophecy in Isa 37:7, does not render this impossible, since, according to credible tradition, Isaiah outlived Hezekiah. The assertion made by Hitzig and others - that the speciality of the prophecy, and the miraculous character of the events recorded in chapters 36-39, preclude the possibility of Isaiah’s authorship, inasmuch as, “according to a well-known critical rule,” such special prophecies as these are always vaticinia ex eventu, and accounts of miracles are always more recent than their historical germ - rests upon a foregone conclusion which was completed before any investigation took place, and which we have good ground for rejecting, although we are well acquainted with the valuable service that has been rendered by this philosopher’s stone. The statement that accounts of miracles as such are never contemporaneous with the events themselves, is altogether at variance with experience; and if the advance from the general to the particular were to be blotted out of Isaiah’s prophecy in relation to Asshur, this would be not only unhistorical, but unpsychological also.

The question whether Isaiah is the author of chapters 36-39 or not, is bound up with the question whether the original place of these histories is in the book of Isaiah or the book of Kings, where the whole passage is repeated with the exception of Hezekiah’s psalm of thanksgiving (2 Kings 18:13-20:19). We shall find that the text of the book of Kings is in several places the purer and more authentic of the two (though not so much so as a biassed prejudice would assume), from which it apparently follows that this section is not in its original position in the book of Isaiah, but has been taken from some other place and inserted there. But this conclusion is a deceptive one. In the relation in which Jer 52 and 2 Kings 24:18-25:30 stand to one another, we have a proof that the text of a passage may be more faithfully preserved in a secondary place than in its original one. For in this particular instance it is equally certain that the section relating to king Zedekiah and the Chaldean catastrophe was written by the author of the book of Kings, whose style was formed on that of Deuteronomy, and also, that in the book of Jeremiah it is an appendix taken by an unknown hand from the book of the Kings. But it is also an acknowledged fact, that the text of Jer is incomparably the purer of the two, and also that there are many other instances in which the passage in the book of Kings is corrupt - that is to say, in the form in which it lies before us now - whereas the Alexandrian translator had it in his possession in a partially better form. Consequently, the fact that Isaiah 36-39 is in some respects less pure than 2 Kings 18:13-20:19, cannot be any argument in itself against the originality of this section in the book of Isaiah.

It is indeed altogether inconceivable, that the author of the book of Kings should have written it; for, on the one hand, the liberality of the prophetic addresses communicated point to a written source; and, on the other hand, it is wanting in that Deuteronomic stamp, by which the hand of this author is so easily recognised. Nor can it have been copied by him out of the annals of Hezekiah (dibhrē hayyâmı̄m), as is commonly supposed, since it is written in prophetic and not in annalistic style. Whoever has once made himself acquainted with these two different kinds of historical composition, the fundamentally different characteristics of which we have pointed out in the Introduction, can never by any possibility confound them again. And this passage is written in a style so peculiarly prophetical, that, like the magnificent historical accounts of Elijah, for example, which commence so abruptly in 2Ki 17:1, it must have been taken from some special and prophetical source, which had nothing to do with other prophetico-historical portions of the book of Kings. And the following facts are sufficient to raise the probability, that this source was no other than the book of Isaiah itself, into an absolute certainty. In the first place, the author of the book of Kings had the book of Isaiah amongst the different sources, of which his apparatus was composed; this is evident from 2Ki 16:5, a passage which was written with Isa 7:1 in view. And secondly, we have express, though indirect, testimony to the effect that this section, which treats of the most important epoch in Hezekiah’s reign, is in its original place in the book of Isaiah. The author of the book of Chronicles says, in 2Ch 32:32 : “Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and the gracious occurrences of his life, behold, they are written in the vision (châzōn) of Isaiah the son of Amoz, and in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.” This notice clearly proves that a certain historical account of Hezekiah had either been taken out of the collection of Isaiah’s prophecies, which is headed châzōn (vision), and inserted in the “book of the kings of Judah and Israel,” or else had been so inserted along with the whole collection. The book of the Kings was the principal source employed by the chronicler, which he calls “the midrash of the book of the Kings” in 2Ch 24:27. Into this Midrash, or else into the still earlier work upon which it was a commentary, the section in question was copied from the book of Isaiah; and it follows from this, that the writer of the history of the kings made use of our book of Isaiah for one portion of the history of Hezekiah’s reign, and made extracts from it. The chronicler himself did not care to repeat the whole section, which he knew to be already contained in the canonical book of Kings (to say nothing of the book of Isaiah). At the same time, his own historical account of Hezekiah in 2Ch 27:1-9 clearly shows that he was acquainted with it, and also that the historical materials, which the annals supplied to him through the medium of the Midrash, were totally different both in substance and form from those contained in the section in question. These two testimonies are further strengthened by the fact, that Isaiah is well known to us as a historian through another passage in the Chronicles, namely, as the author of a complete history of Uzziah’s reign; also by the fact, that the prophetico-historical style of chapters 36-39, with their fine, noble, pictorial prose, which is comparable to the grandest historical composition to be met with in Hebrew, is worthy of Isaiah, and bears every mark of Isaiah’s pen; thirdly, by the fact, that there are other instances in which Isaiah has interwoven historical accounts with his prophecies (chapters 7-8 and Isa 20:1-6), and that in so doing he sometimes speaks of himself in the first person (Isa 6:1; Isa 8:1-4), and sometimes in the third (Isa 7:3., and Isa 20:1), just as in chapters 36-39; and fourthly, by the fact that, as we have already observed, Isa 7:3 and Isa 36:2 bear the clearest marks of having had one and the same author; and, as we shall also show, the order in which the four accounts in chapters 36-39 are arranged, corresponds to the general plan of the whole collection of prophecies - chapters 36 and 37 looking back to the prophecies of the Assyrian era, and chapters 38 and Isa 39:1-8 looking forwards to those of the Babylonian era, which is the prophet’s ideal present from chapter 40 onwards.

‏ Isaiah 36

Isa 36:1-2

Marcus V. Niebuhr, in his History of Asshur and Babel (p. 164), says, “Why should not Hezekiah have revolted from Asshur as soon as he ascended the throne? He had a motive for doing this, which other kings had not - namely, that as he held his kingdom in fief from his God, obedience to a temporal monarch was in his case sin.” But this assumption, which is founded upon the same idea as that in which the question was put to Jesus concerning the tribute money, is not at all in accordance with Isaiah’s view, as we may see from chapters 28-32; and Hezekiah’s revolt cannot have occurred even in the sixth year of his reign. For Shalmanassar, or rather Sargon, made war upon Egypt and Ethiopia after the destruction of Samaria (Isa 20:1-6; cf., Oppert, Les Inscriptions des Sargonides, pp. 22, 27), without attempting anything against Hezekiah. It was not till the time of Sargon, who overthrew the reigning house of Assyria, that the actual preparations for the revolt were commenced, by the formation of an alliance between the kingdom of Judah on the one hand, and Egypt, and probably Philistia, on the other, the object of which was the rupture of the Assyrian yoke. ^{▼▼The name Amgarron upon the earthenware prism of Sennacherib does not mean Migron (Oppert), but Ekron (Rawlinson).}

The campaign of Sennacherib the son of Sargon, into which we are transported in the following history, was the third of his expeditions, the one to which Sennacherib himself refers in the inscription upon the prism: “dans ma ̄e campagne je marchai vers la Syrie.” The position which we find Sennacherib taking up between Philistia and Jerusalem, to the south-west of the latter, is a very characteristic one in relation to both the occasion and the ultimate object of the campaign. ^{▼▼We shall show the variations in the text of 2Ki 18:13., as far as we possibly can, in our translation. K. signifies the book of Kings. But the task of pronouncing an infallible sentence upon them all we shall leave to those who know everything.}

Isa 32:1 “And it came to pass in the (K.and in the)fourteenth year of king Hizkîyahu, Sancherîb king of Asshur came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them. (K. adds:Then Hizkiyah king of Judah sent to the king of Asshur to Lachish, saying, I have sinned, withdraw from me again; what thou imposest upon me I will raise. And the king of Asshur imposed upon Hizkiyah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold. And Hizkiyah gave up all the silver that was in the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the king’s house. At the same time Hizkiyah mutilated the doors of the temple of Jehovah, and the pillars which Hizkiyah king of Judah had plated with gold, and gave it to the king of Asshur).” This long addition, which is distinguished at once by the introduction of חזיקה in the place of חזקיהו, is probably only an annalistic interpolation, though one of great importance in relation to Isa 33:7. What follows in Isaiah does not dovetail well into this addition, and therefore does not presuppose its existence. Isa 36:2 “Then the king of Asshur sent Rabshakeh (K.:Tartan, and Rabsaris, and Rabshakeh)from Lachish towards Jerusalem to king Hizkiyahu with a great army, and he advanced (K.:to king H. with a great army to Jerusalem; and they went up and came to Jerusalem, and went up, and came and advanced)to the conduit of the upper pool by the road of the fuller’s field.” Whereas in K. the repeated ויבאו ויעלו (and went up and came) forms a “dittography,” the names Tartan and Rab-saris have apparently dropped out of the text of Isaiah, as Isa 37:6, Isa 37:24 presuppose a plurality of messengers. The three names are not names of persons, but official titles, viz., the commander-in-chief (Tartan, which really occurs in an Assyrian list of offices; see Rawlinson, Monarchies, ii. 412), the chief cup-bearer (רבשׁקה with tzere = רבשׁקא)). The situation of Lachish is marked by the present ruins of Umm Lakis, to the south-west of Bet-Gibrin ((Eleutheropolis) in the Shephelah. The messengers come from the south-west with the ultima ratio of a strong detachment (חיל a connecting form, from חיל, like גדולה גּיא, Zec 14:4; Ewald, §287,a); they therefore halt on the western side of Jerusalem (on the locality, see at Isa 7:3; Isa 22:8-11; compare Keil on Kings). Isa 36:3-10

Hezekiah’s confidential ministers go there also. Isa 36:3 (K. “And they called to the king), and there went out to him (K.to them)Eliakim son of Hilkiyahu, the house-minister, and Shebna the chancellor, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder.” On the office of the house-minister, or major-domo, which was now filled by Eliakim instead of Shebna (שׁבנא, K. twice שׁבנה), see Isa 22:15.; and on that of sōphēr and mazkı̄r. Rabshakeh’s message follows in Isa 36:4-10 :“And Rabshakeh said to them, Say now to Hizkiyahu, Thus saith the great king, the king of Asshur, What sort of confidence is this that thou hast got? I say (K.thou sayest, i.e., thou talkest),vain talk is counsel and strength for war: now, then, in whom dost thou trust, that thou hast rebelled against me? (K. Now)Behold, thou trustest (K. לּך)in this broken reed-staff there, in Egypt, on which one leans, and it runs into his hand and pierces it; so does Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. But if thou sayest to me (K. ye say),We trust in Jehovah our God; is it not He whose high places and altars Hizkiyahu has removed, and has said to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before the altar (K. ads,in Jerusalem)?And now take a wager with my lord (K. with) the king of Asshur; I will deliver thee two thousand horses, if thou art able for thy part to give horsemen upon them. And how couldst thou repel the advance of a single satrap among the least of the servants of my lord?! Thou puttest thy trust then in Egypt for chariots and riders! And (omitted in K.)now have I come up without Jehovah against this land to destroy it (K. against this place, to destroy it)?Jehovah said to me, Go up to (K. against)this land, and destroy it.” The chronicler has a portion of this address of Rabshakeh in 2Ch 32:10-12. And just as the prophetic words in the book of Kings have a Deuteronomic sound, and those in the Chronicles the ring of a chronicle, so do Rabshakeh’s words, and those which follow, sound like the words of Isaiah himself. “The great king” is the standing royal title appended to the names of Sargon and Sennacherib upon the Assyrian monuments (compare Isa 10:8). Hezekiah is not thought worthy of the title of king, ether here or afterwards. The reading אמרתּ in Isa 36:5 (thou speakest vain talk) is not the preferable one, because in that case we should expect דּבּרתּ, or rather (according to the usual style) אך דּבּרתּ. The meaning is, that he must look upon Hezekiah’s resolution, and his strength (וּגבוּרה עצה connected as in Isa 11:2) for going to war, as mere boasting (“lip-words,” as in Pro 14:23), and must therefore assume that there was something in the background of which he was well aware. And this must be Egypt, which would not only be of no real help to its ally, but would rather do him harm by leaving him in the lurch. The figure of a reed-staff has been borrowed by Ezekiel in Isa 29:6-7. It was a very appropriate one for Egypt, with its abundance of reeds and rushes (Isa 19:6), and it has Isaiah’s peculiar ring (for the expression itself, compare Isa 42:3; and for the fact itself, Isa 30:5, and other passages). רצוּץ does not mean fragile (Luzz. quella fragil canna), but broken, namely, in consequence of the loss of the throne by the native royal family, from whom it had been wrested by the Ethiopians (Isa 18:1-7), and the defeats sustained at the hands of Sargon (Isa 20:1-6). The construction cui quis innitur et intrat is paratactic for cui si quis. In Isa 36:7 the reading תאמרוּן commends itself, from the fact that the sentence is not continued with הסירת; but as Hezekiah is addressed throughout, and it is to him that the reply is to be made, the original reading was probably תאמר. The fact that Hezekiah had restricted the worship of Jehovah to Jerusalem, by removing the other places of worship (2Ki 18:4), is brought against him in a thoroughly heathen, and yet at the same time (considering the inclination to worship other gods which still existed in the nation) a very crafty manner. In Isa 36:8, Isa 36:9, he throws in his teeth, with most imposing scorn, his own weakness as compared with Asshur, which was chiefly dreaded on account of its strength in cavalry and war-chariots. נא התערב does not refer to the performance and counter-performance which follow, in the sense of “connect thyself” (Luzz. associati), but is used in a similar sense to the Omeric μιγῆναι, though with the idea of vying with one another, not of engaging in war (the synonym in the Talmud is himrâh, to bet, e.g., b. Sabbath 31 a): a bet and a pledge are kindred notions (Heb. ערבון, cf., Lat. vadari). On pechâh (for pachâh), which also occurs as an Assyrian title in Eze 23:6, Eze 23:23. אחד פּחת, two constructives, the first of which is to be explained according to Ewald, §286, a (compare above, Isa 36:2, כבד חיל), form the logical regens of the following servorum dominin mei minimorum; and hēshı̄bh penē does not mean here to refuse a petitioner, but to repel an antagonist (Isa 28:6). The fut. consec. ותּבטח deduces a consequence: Hezekiah could not do anything by himself, and therefore he trusted in Egypt, from which he expected chariots and horsemen. In Isa 36:10, the prophetic idea, that Asshur was the instrument employed by Jehovah (Isa 10:5, etc.), is put into the mouth of the Assyrian himself. This is very conceivable, but the colouring of Isaiah is undeniable. Isa 36:11

The concluding words, in which the Assyrian boasts of having Jehovah on his side, affect the messengers of Hezekiah in the keenest manner, especially because of the people present. “Then said Eliakim (K.the son of Hilkiyahu), and Shebna, and Joah, to Rabshakeh, Pray, speak to thy servants in Aramaean, for we understand it; and do not speak to (K.with)us in Jewish, in the ears of the people that are on the wall.” They spoke Yehūdı̄th, i.e., the colloquial language of the kingdom of Judah. The kingdom of Israel was no longer in existence, and the language of the Israelitish nation, as a whole, might therefore already be called Judaean (Jewish), as in Neh 13:24, more especially as there may have been a far greater dialectical difference between the popular speech of the northern and southern kingdoms, than we can gather from the biblical books that were written in the one or the other. Aramaean ('arâmı̄th), however, appears to have been even then, as it was at a later period (Ezr 4:7), the language of intercourse between the empire of Eastern Asia and the people to the west of the Tigris (compare Alex. Polyhistor in Euseb. chron. arm. i. 43, where Sennacherib is said to have erected a monument with a Chaldean inscription); and consequently educated Judaeans not only understood it, but were able to speak it, more especially those who were in the service of the state. Assyrian, on the contrary, was unintelligible to Judaeans (Isa 28:11; Isa 33:19), although this applied comparatively less to the true Assyrian dialect, which was Semitic, and can be interpreted for the most part from the Hebrew (see Oppert’s “Outlines of an Assyrian Grammar” in the Journal Asiatique, 1859), than to the motley language of the Assyrian army, which was a compound of Arian and Turanian elements. The name Sennacherib (Sanchērı̄bh = סן־אסהי־ירב, lxx Sennachēreim, i.e., “Sin, the moon-god, had multiplied the brethren”) is Semitic; on the other hand, the name Tartan, which cannot be interpreted either from the Semitic or the Arian, is an example of the element referred to, which was so utterly strange to a Judaean ear. Isa 36:12

The harsh reply is given in Isa 36:12. “Then Rabshakeh said (K. to them),Has my lord sent me to (K. העל)the men who sit upon the wall, to eat their dung, and to drink their urine together with you?” - namely, because their rulers were exposing them to a siege which would involve the most dreadful state of famine. Isa 36:13-20

After Rabshakeh had refused the request of Hezekiah’s representatives in this contemptuous manner, he turned in defiance of them to the people themselves. “Then Rabshakeh went near, and cried with a loud voice in the Jewish language (K.and spake), and said, Hear the words (K.the word)of the great king, the king of Asshur. Thus saith the king, Let not Hizkiyahu practise deception upon you (יסה, K.יסהיא)); for he cannot deliver you (K.out of his hand). And let not Hizkiyahu feed you with hope in Jehovah, saying, Jehovah will deliver, yea, deliver us: (K.and)this city will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Asshur. Hearken not to Hizkiyahu: for thus saith the king (hammelekh , K.melekh)of Asshur, Enter into a connection of mutual good wishes with me, and come out to me: and enjoy every one his vine, and every one his fig-tree, and drink every one the water of his cistern; till I come and take you away into a land like your land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread-corn and vineyards (K.a land full of fine olive-trees and honey, and live and do not die, and hearken not to Hizkiyahu); that Hizkiyahu to not befool you (K.for he befools you), saying, Jehovah will deliver us! Have the gods of the nations delivered (K.really delivered)every one his land out of the hand of the king of Asshur? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? where the gods of Sepharvayim (K.adds, Hena‛ and ‛Ivah)? and how much less (וכי, K. כּי)have they delivered that Samaria out of my hand? Who were they among all the gods of these (K.of the)lands, who delivered their land out of my hand? how much less will Jehovah deliver Jerusalem out of my hand!? The chronicler also has this continuation of Rabshakeh’s address in part (2Ch 32:13-15), but he has fused into one the Assyrian self-praise uttered by Rabshakeh on his first and second mission. The encouragement of the people, by referring to the help of Jehovah (2Ch 32:6-8), is placed by him before this first account is given by Isaiah, and forms a conclusion to the preparations for the contest with Asshur as there described. Rabshakeh now draws nearer to the wall, and harangues the people. השּׁיא is construed here with a dative (to excite treacherous hopes); whereas in 2Ch 32:15 it is written with an accusative. The reading מיּדו is altered from מיּדי in Isa 36:20, which is inserted still more frequently by the chronicler. The reading את־העיר with תנּתן is incorrect; it would require ינּתן (Ges. §143, 1 a). To make a berâkhâh with a person was equivalent to entering into a relation of blessing, i.e., into a state of mind in which each wished all prosperity to the other. This was probably a common phrase, though we only meet with it here. יצא, when applied to the besieged, is equivalent to surrendering (e.g., 1Sa 11:3). If they did that, they should remain in quiet possession and enjoyment, until the Assyrian fetched them away (after the Egyptian campaign was over), and transported them to a land which he describes to them in the most enticing terms, in order to soften down the inevitable transportation. It is a question whether the expansion of this picture in the book of Kings is original or not; since ועוּה הנע in Isa 36:19 appears to be also tacked on here from Isa 37:13 (see at this passage). On Hamath and Arpad (to the north of Haleb in northern Syria, and a different place from Arvad = Arad), see Isa 10:9. Sepharvayim (a dual form, the house of the Sepharvı̄m, 2Ki 17:31) is the Sipphara of Ptol. v. 18, 7, the southernmost city of Mesopotamia, on the left bank of the Euphrates; Pliny’s Hipparenum on the Narraga, i.e., the canal, nehar malkâ, the key to the irrigating or inundating works of Babylon, which were completed afterwards by Nebuchadnezzar (Plin. h. n. vi. 30); probably the same place as the sun-city, Sippara, in which Xisuthros concealed the sacred books before the great flood (see K. Müller’s Fragmenta Historicorum Gr. ii. 501-2). פּן in Isa 36:18 has a warning meaning (as if it followed לכם השּׁמרו ); and both וכי and כּי in Isa 36:19, Isa 36:20, introduce an exclamatory clause when following a negative interrogatory sentence: and that they should have saved,” or “that Jehovah should save,” equivalent to “how much less have they saved, or will He save” (Ewald, §354, c; comp. אף־כּי, 2Ch 32:15). Rabshakeh’s words in Isa 36:18-20 are the same as those in Isa 10:8-11. The manner in which he defies the gods of the heathen, of Samaria, and last of all of Jerusalem, corresponds to the prophecy there. It is the prophet himself who acts as historian here, and describes the fulfilment of the prophecy, though without therefore doing violence to his character as a prophet. Isa 36:21-22

The effect of Rabshakeh’s words. “But they held their peace (K.and they, the people, held their peace), and answered him not a word; for it was the king’s commandment, saying, Ye shall not answer him. Then came Eliakim son of Hilkiyahu (K.Hilkiyah), the house-minister, and Shebna the chancellor, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, to Hizkiyahu, with torn clothes, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.” It is only a superficial observation that could commend the reading in Kings, “They, the people, held their peace,” which Hitzig and Knobel prefer, but which Luzzatto very properly rejects. As the Assyrians wished to speak to the king himself (2Ki 18:18), who sent the three to them as his representatives, the command to hear, and to make no reply, can only have applied to them (and they had already made the matter worse by the one remark which they had made concerning the language); and the reading ויּחרישׁוּ in the text of Isaiah is the correct one. The three were silent, because the king had imposed the duty of silence upon them; and regarding themselves as dismissed, inasmuch as Rabshakeh had turned away from them to the people, they hastened to the king, rending their clothes, in despair and grief and the disgrace they had experienced.

‏ Isaiah 37:1-22

Isa 37:1-4

The king and the deputation apply to Isaiah. “And it came to pass, when king Hizkiyahu had heard, he rent his clothes, and wrapped himself in mourning linen, and went into the house of Jehovah. And sent Eliakim the house-minister, and Shebna (K. omits את)the chancellor, and the eldest of the priests, wrapped in mourning linen, to Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet (K. has what is inadmissible: the prophet son of Amoz).And they said to him, Thus saith Hizkiyahu, A day of affliction, and punishment, and blasphemy is this day; for children are come to the matrix, and there is no strength to bring them forth. Perhaps Jehovah thy God will hear the words (K. all the words)of Rabshakeh, with which the king of Asshur his lord has sent him to revile the living God; and Jehovah thy God will punish for the words which He hath heard, and thou wilt make intercession for the remnant that still exists.” The distinguished embassy is a proof of the distinction of the prophet himself (Knobel). The character of the deputation accorded with its object, which was to obtain a consolatory word for the king and people. In the form of the instructions we recognise again the flowing style of Isaiah. תּוכחה, as a synonym of מוּסר, נקם, is used as in Hos 5:9; נאצה (from the kal נאץ) according to Isa 1:4; Isa 5:24; Isa 52:5, like נאצה (from the piel נאץ), Neh 9:18, Neh 9:26 (reviling, i.e., reviling of God, or blasphemy). The figure of there not being sufficient strength to bring forth the child, is the same as in Isa 66:9. משׁבּר (from שׁבר, syn. פּרץ, Gen 38:29) does not signify the actual birth (Luzzatto, punto di dover nascere), nor the delivering-stool (Targum), like mashbēr shel-chayyâh, the delivering-stool of the midwife (Kelim xxiii. 4); but as the subject is the children, and not the mother, the matrix or mouth of the womb, as in Hos 13:13, “He (Ephraim) is an unwise child; when it is time does he not stop in the children’s passage” (mashbēr bânı̄m), i.e., the point which a child must pass, not only with its head, but also with its shoulders and its whole body, for which the force of the pains is often not sufficient? The existing condition of the state resembled such unpromising birth-pains, which threatened both the mother and the fruit of the womb with death, because the matrix would not open to give birth to the child. לדה like דּעה in Isa 11:9. The timid inquiry, which hardly dared to hope, commences with 'ūlai. The following future is continued in perfects, the force of which is determined by it: “and He (namely Jehovah, the Targum and Syriac) will punish for the words,” or, as we point it, “there will punish for the words which He hath heard, Jehovah thy God (hōkhı̄ach, referring to a judicial decision, as in a general sense in Isa 2:4 and Isa 11:4); and thou wilt lift up prayer” (i.e., begin to offer it, Isa 14:4). “He will hear,” namely as judge and deliverer; “He hath heard,” namely as the omnipresent One. The expression, “to revile the living God” (lechârēph 'Elōhı̄m chai), sounds like a comparison of Rabshakeh to Goliath (1Sa 17:26, 1Sa 17:36). The “existing remnant” was Jerusalem, which was not yet in the enemy’s hand (compare Isa 1:8-9). The deliverance of the remnant is a key-note of Isaiah’s prophecies. But the prophecy would not be fulfilled, until the grace which fulfilled it had been met by repentance and faith. Hence Hezekiah’s weak faith sues for the intercession of the prophet, whose personal relation to God is here set forth as a closer one than that of the king and priests. Isa 37:5-7

Isaiah’s reply. “And the servants of king Hizkiyahu came to Isaiah. And Isaiah said to them (אליהם, K. להם),Speak thus to your lord, Thus saith Jehovah, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Asshur have blasphemed me! Behold, I will bring a spirit upon him, and he will hear a hearsay, and return to his land; and I cut him down with the sword in his own land.” Luzzatto, without any necessity, takes ויּאמרוּ in Isa 37:3 in the modal sense of what they were to do (e dovevano dirgli): they were to say this to him, but he anticipated them at once with the instructions given here. The fact, so far as the style is concerned, is rather this, that Isa 37:5, while pointing back, gives the ground for Isa 37:6 : “and when they had come to him (saying this), he said to them.” נערי we render “servants” (Knappen) ^{▼▼Knappe is the same word as “Knave;” but we have no word in use now which is an exact equivalent, and knave has entirely lost its original sense of servant. - Tr.} after Est 2:2; Est 6:3, Est 6:5; it is a more contemptuous expression than עבדי. The rūăch mentioned here as sent by God is a superior force of a spiritual kind, which influences both thought and conduct, as in such other connections as Isa 19:14; Isa 28:6; Isa 29:10 (Psychol. p. 295, Anm.).

The external occasion which determined the return of Sennacherib, as described in Isa 37:36-37, was the fearful mortality that had taken place in his army. The shemū‛âh (rumour, hearsay), however, was not the tidings of this catastrophe, but, as the continuation of the account in Isa 37:8, Isa 37:9, clearly shows, the report of the advance of Tirhakah, which compelled Sennacherib to leave Palestine in consequence of this catastrophe. The prediction of his death is sufficiently special to be regarded by modern commentators, who will admit nothing but the most misty figures as prophecies, as a vaticinium post eventum. At the same time, the prediction of the event which would drive the Assyrian out of the land is intentionally couched in these general terms. The faith of the king, and of the inquirers generally, still needed to be tested and exercised. The time had not yet come for him to be rewarded by a clearer and fuller announcement of the judgment. Isa 37:8-9

Rabshakeh, who is mentioned alone in both texts as the leading person engaged, returns to Sennacherib, who is induced to make a second attempt to obtain possession of Jerusalem, as a position of great strength and decisive importance. “Rabshakeh thereupon returned, and found the king of Asshur warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he had withdrawn from Lachish. And he heard say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, (K.Behold), he has come out to make war with thee; and heard, and sent (K.and repeated, and sent)messengers to Hizkiyahu, saying.” Tirhakah was cursorily referred to in Isa 18:1-7. The twenty-fifth dynasty of Manetho contained three Ethiopian rulers: Sabakon, Sebichōs (סוא = סוא), although, so far as we know, the Egyptian names begin with Sh), and Tarakos (Tarkos), Egypt. Taharka, or Heb. with the tone upon the penultimate, Tirhâqâh. The only one mentioned by Herodotus is Sabakon, to whom he attributes a reign of fifty years (ii. 139), i.e., as much as the whole three amount to, when taken in a round sum. If Sebichos is the biblical So', to whom the lists attribute from twelve to fourteen years, it is perfectly conceivable that Tirhakah may have been reigning in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah. But if this took place, as Manetho affirms, 366 years before the conquest of Egypt by Alexander, i.e., from 696 onwards (and the Apis-stele, No. 2037, as deciphered by Vic. de Rougé, Revue archéol. 1863, confirms it), it would be more easily reconcilable with the Assyrian chronology, which represents Sennacherib as reigning from 702-680 (Oppert and Rawlinson), than with the current biblical chronology, according to which Hezekiah’s fourteenth year is certainly not much later than the year 714. ^{▼▼On the still prevailing uncertainty with regard to the synchronism, see Keil on Kings; and Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums. pp. 713-4.}

It is worthy of remark also, that Tirhakah is not described as Pharaoh here, but as the king of Ethiopia (melekh Kūsh; see at Isa 37:36). Libnah, according to the Onom. a place in regione Eleutheropolitana, is probably the same as Tell es-Safieh (“hill of the pure” = of the white), to the north-west of Bet Gibrin, called Alba Specula (Blanche Garde) in ten middle ages. The expression ויּשׁמע (“and he heard”), which occurs twice in the text, points back to what is past, and also prepares the way for what follows: “having heard this, he sent,” etc. At the same time it appears to have been altered from ויּשׁב. Isa 37:10-13

The message. “Thus shall ye say to Hizkiyahu king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Asshur. Behold, thou hast surely heard what (K.that which)the kings of Asshur have done to all lands, to lay the ban upon them; and thou, thou shouldst be delivered?! Have the gods of the nations, which my fathers destroyed, delivered them: Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the Benē - ‛Eden , which are in Tellasar? Where is (K.where is he)the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of 'Ir-Sepharvaim, Hena', and 'Ivah?”Although ארץ is feminine, אותם (K. אתם), like להחרימם, points back to the lands (in accordance with the want of any thoroughly developed distinction of the genders in Hebrew); likewise אשׁר quas pessumdederunt. There is historical importance in the fact, that here Sennacherib attributes to his fathers (Sargon and the previous kings of the Derketade dynasty which he had overthrown) what Rabshakeh on the occasion of the first mission had imputed to Sennacherib himself. On Gozan, see p. 33. It is no doubt identical with the Zuzan of the Arabian geographers, which is described as a district of outer Armenia, situated on the Chabur, e.g., in the Merasid. (“The Chabur is the Chabur of el-Hasaniye, a district of Mosul, to the east of the Tigris; it comes down from the mountains of the land of Zuzan, flows through a broad and thickly populated country in the north of Mosul, which is called outer Armenia, and empties itself into the Tigris.” Ptolemy, on the other hand (Isa 37:18, Isa 37:14), is acquainted with a Mesopotamian Gauzanitis; and, looking upon northern Mesopotamia as the border land of Armenia, he says, κατέχει δὲ τῆς ξηώρας τὰ μὲν πρὸς τῆ Αρμενία ἡ Ανθεμουσία (not far from Edessa) ὑφ ἥν ἡ Χαλκῖτις ὑπὸ δὲ ταύτην ἡ Γαυζανῖτις, possibly the district of Gulzan, in which Nisibin, the ancient Nisibis, still stands. ^{▼▼See Oppert, Expédition, i. 60.}

For Hârân (Syr. Horon; Joseph. Charran of Mesopotamia), the present Harrân, not far from Charmelik, see Genesis, p. 327. The Harran in the Guta of Damascus (on the southern arm of the Harus), which Beke has recently identified with it, is not connected with it in any way. Retseph is the Rhesapha of Ptol. v. 18, 6, below Thapsacus, the present Rusafa in the Euphrates-valley of ez-Zor, between the Euphrates and Tadmur (Palmyra; see Robinson, Pal.). Telassar, with which the Targum (ii. iii.) and Syr. confound the Ellasar of Gen 14:1, i.e., Artemita (Artamita), is not the Thelseae of the Itin. Antonini and of the Notitia dignitatum - in which case the Benē-‛Eden might be the tribe of Bêt Genn (Bettegene) on the southern slope of Lebanon (i.e., the 'Eden of Coelesyria, Amo 1:5; the Paradeisos of Ptol. v. 15, 20; Paradisus, Plin. v. 19) - but the Thelser of the Tab. Peuting., on the eastern side of the Tigris; and Benē-‛Eden is the tribe of the 'Eden mentioned by Ezekiel (Eze 27:23) after Haran and Ctesiphon. Consequently the enumeration of the warlike deeds describes a curve, which passes in a north-westerly direction through Hamath and Arpad, and then returns in Sepharvaim to the border of southern Mesopotamia and Babylonia. 'Ir-Sepharvaim is like 'Ir-Nâchâs, 'Ir-shemesh, etc. The legends connect the name with the sacred books. The form of the name is inexplicable; but the name itself probably signifies the double shore (after the Aramaean), as the city, which was the southernmost of the leading places of Mesopotamia, was situated on the Euphrates. The words ועוּה הנע, if not take as proper names, would signify, “he has taken away, and overthrown;” but in that case we should expect ועוּוּ הניעוּ or ועוּיתי הניעתי. They are really the names of cities which it is no longer possible to trace. Hena' is hardly the well-known Avatho on the Euphrates, as Gesenius, V. Niebuhr, and others suppose; and 'Ivah, the seat of the Avvı̄m (2Ki 17:31), agrees still less, so far as the sound of the word is concerned, with “the province of Hebeh (? Hebeb: Ritter, Erdk. xi. 707), situated between Anah and the Chabur on the Euphrates,” with which V. Niebuhr combines it. ^{▼▼For other combinations of equal value, see Oppert, Expédition, i. 220.} Isa 37:14-20

This intimidating message, which declared the God of Israel to be utterly powerless, was conveyed by the messengers of Sennacherib in the form of a latter. “And Hizkiyahu took the letter out of the hand of the messengers, and read it (K.read them), and went up to the house of Jehovah; and Hizkiyahu spread it before Jehovah.” Sephârı̄m (the sheets) is equivalent to the letter (not a letter in duplo), like literae (cf., grammata). ויּקראהוּ (changed by K. into m- ') is construed according to the singular idea. Thenius regards this spreading out of the letter as a naiveté; and Gesenius even goes so far as to speak of the praying machines of the Buddhists. But it was simply prayer without words - an act of prayer, which afterwards passed into vocal prayer. “And Hizkiyahu prayed to (K. before)Jehovah, saying (K. and said),Jehovah of hosts (K. omits tsebhâ'ōth),God of Israel, enthroned upon the cherubim, Thou, yea Thou alone, art God of all the kingdoms of the earth; Thou, Thou hast made the heavens and the earth. Incline Thine ear, Jehovah, and hear וּשׁמע, various reading in both texts וּשׁמע)! Open Thine eyes (K. with Yod of the plural),Jehovah, and see; and hear the (K. all the)words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent (K. with which he hath sent him, i.e., Rabshakeh)to despise the living God! Truly, O Jehovah, the kings of Asshur have laid waste all lands, and their land (K. the nations and their land),and have put (venâthōn, K. venâthenū)their gods into the fire: for they were not gods, only the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them. And now, Jehovah our God, help us (K. adds pray)out of his hand, and all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou Jehovah (K. Jehovah Elohim)art it alone.” On כּרבים (no doubt the same word as γρυπές, though not fabulous beings like these, but a symbolical representation of heavenly beings), see my Genesis, p. 626; and on yōshēbh hakkerubhı̄m (enthroned on the cherubim), see at Psa 18:11 and Psa 80:2. הוּא in אתּה־הוּא is an emphatic repetition, that is to say a strengthening, of the subject, like Isa 43:25; Isa 51:12; 2Sa 7:28; Jer 49:12; Psa 44:5; Neh 9:6-7; Ezr 5:11 : tu ille (not tu es ille, Ges. §121, 2) = tu, nullus alius. Such passages as Isa 41:4, where הוּא is the predicate, do not belong here. עין is not a singular (like עיני in Psa 32:8, where the lxx have עיני), but a defective plural, as we should expect after pâqach. On the other hand, the reading shelâchō (“hath sent him”), which cannot refer to debhârı̄m (the words), but only to the person bringing the written message, is to be rejected. Moreover, Knobel cannot help giving up his preference for the reading venâthōn (compare Gen 41:43; Ges. §131, 4 a); just as, on the other hand, we cannot help regarding the reading ואת־ארצם את־כּל־הארצות as a mistake, when compared with the reading of the book of Kings. Abravanel explains the passage thus: “The Assyrians have devastated the lands, and their own land” (cf., Isa 14:20), of which we may find examples in the list of victories given above; compare also Beth-arbel in Hos 10:14, if this is Irbil on the Tigris, from which Alexander’s second battle in Persia, which was really fought at Gaugamela, derived its name. But how does this tally with the fact that they threw the gods of these lands - that is to say, of their own land also (for אלהיהם could not possibly refer to הארצות, to the exclusion of ארצם) - into the fire? If we read haggōyı̄m (the nations), we get rid both of the reference to their own land, which is certainly purposeless here, and also of the otherwise inevitable conclusion that they burned the gods of their own country. The reading הארצות appears to have arisen from the fact, that after the verb החריב the lands appeared to follow more naturally as the object, than the tribes themselves (compare, however, Isa 60:12). The train of thought is the following: The Assyrians have certainly destroyed nations and their gods, because these gods were nothing but the works of men: do Thou then help us, O Jehovah, that the world may see that Thou alone art it, viz., God ('Elōhı̄m, as K. adds, although, according to the accents, Jehovah Elohim are connected together, as in the books of Samuel and Chronicles, and very frequently in the mouth of David: see Symbolae in Psalmos, pp. 15, 16). Isa 37:21-23

The prophet’s reply. “And Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hizkiyahu, saying, Thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to me concerning Sennacherib the king of Asshur (K. adds,I have heard): this is the utterance which Jehovah utters concerning him.” He sent, i.e., sent a message, viz., by one of his disciples (limmūdı̄m, Isa 8:16). According to the text of Isaiah, אשׁר would commence the protasis to הדּבר זה (as for that which - this is the utterance); or, as the Vav of the apodosis is wanting, it might introduce relative clauses to what precedes (“I, to whom:” Ges. §123, 1, Anm. 1). But both of these are very doubtful. We cannot dispense with שׁמעתּי (I have heard), which is given by both the lxx and Syr. in the text of Isaiah, as well as that of Kings.

The prophecy of Isaiah which follows here, is in all respects one of the most magnificent that we meet with. It proceeds with strophe-like strides on the cothurnus of the Deborah style: “The virgin daughter of Zion despiseth thee, laugheth thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem shaketh her head after thee. Whom hast thou reviled and blasphemed, and over whom hast thou spoken loftily, that thou hast lifted up thine eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.” The predicate is written at the head, in Isa 37:22, in the masculine, i.e., without any precise definition; since בּזה is a verb ל ה, and neither the participle nor the third pers. fem. of בּוּז. Zion is called a virgin, with reference to the shame with which it was threatened though without success (Isa 23:12); bethūlath bath are subordinate appositions, instead of co-ordinate. With a contented and heightened self-consciousness, she shakes her head behind him as he retreats with shame, saying by her attitude, as she moves her head backwards and forwards, that it must come to this, and could not be otherwise (Jer 18:16; Lam 2:15-16). The question in Isa 37:23 reaches as far as עיניך, although, according to the accents, Isa 37:23 is an affirmative clause: “and thou turnest thine eyes on high against the Holy One of Israel” (Hitzig, Ewald, Drechsler, and Keil). The question is put for the purpose of saying to Asshur, that He at whom they scoff is the God of Israel, whose pure holiness breaks out into a consuming fire against all by whom it is dishonoured. The fut. cons. ותּשּׂה is essentially the same as in Isa 51:12-13, and מרום is the same as in Isa 40:26.